Four years before Vladimir Putin’s forces crossed into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Western intelligence agencies were quietly but comprehensively tracking what would become one of the most consequential breaches of European peace since World War II. A Guardian UK investigation drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials, diplomats and insiders from the United States, Britain, Ukraine, Russia and across Europe reveals how the CIA and MI6 pieced together detailed indications of Putin’s war plans, why others dismissed them, and how that misjudgment shaped the opening months of the war. This is the story of an intelligence success shadowed by profound scepticism, hesitation and political miscalculation.
In November 2021, President Joe Biden dispatched CIA director William Burns to speak directly with Putin about the escalating signs that Russia was preparing for a significant attack on Ukraine. Burns arrived expecting a face‑to‑face meeting but instead conducted the crucial conversation over a secure phone line, with Putin secluded at his Black Sea residence. On that call, Burns warned the Russian leader that invading Ukraine would have dire political and economic consequences. Putin replied with his own narrative, claiming to have intelligence of an American warship lurking in the Black Sea and framing Russia as strategically vulnerable in a U.S.‑dominated world. Burns returned to Washington convinced — and more alarmed than when he left. When President Biden asked if he thought Putin was going to act, Burns answered simply, “Yes.”
Just three and a half months later, Russia launched its full‑scale invasion. But the months leading up to that moment tell a more complicated story than a simple failure of foresight. What the U.S. and British intelligence services got right was the scope and intent of Putin’s plan; where they, and many others, went wrong was in assuming a swift Russian victory or in doubting the likelihood of any large‑scale European war at all.
The initial signs of intent emerged long before the 2021 warning. U.S. analysts later traced possible decision points back to early 2020, when Putin amended the constitution to allow him to remain in power past 2024 and spent months isolated during the COVID‑19 pandemic studying Russian history. At the same time, the Kremlin intervened forcefully to crush protests in Belarus, strengthening ties with a weakened regime and laying the groundwork for using Belarusian territory as part of a northern invasion route into Ukraine. In those months, seemingly discrete aggressive actions by Russian security services, including a novichok poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, would only later be seen as part of a wider strategic pattern.
By spring 2021, Russian troops began a noticeable buildup on Ukraine’s borders and in occupied Crimea under the guise of exercises. The U.S. received intelligence suggesting Putin might use an annual address on 21 April to justify military action. Subsequently, Biden raised de‑escalation and proposed a summit, which was duly held in Geneva in June. On the surface, that summit seemed to calm tensions, but only in hindsight did it become clear that Putin was already committed to a non‑diplomatic solution.
By autumn of 2021, circumstances had shifted decisively. Putin published a long essay framing Ukrainian sovereignty as only possible in partnership with Russia, and a second influx of Russian troops made clear there was nothing routine about the troop movements. U.S. intelligence, backed by Britain’s MI6, now believed Putin was planning something far larger than limited incursions in Donbas or a corridor linking Donbas with Crimea — perhaps even the capture of Kyiv itself.
At a NATO intelligence chiefs’ meeting in Brussels in mid‑November, when Avril Haines, Biden’s director of national intelligence, and MI6 chief Richard Moore presented the accumulation of evidence, they met broad scepticism. European officials were hesitant to embrace the idea of a major war unfolding in Europe in the twenty‑first century. Some feared that adopting a strong defensive posture could itself provoke the conflict the U.S. was warning against. Others were haunted by memories of faulty intelligence leading up to the Iraq war in 2003 and were understandably cautious about accepting American assessments that seemed fantastical.
The United States responded by sharing as much intelligence as possible with allies and even declassifying significant material. This unprecedented sharing — at times with the original sources obscured to protect methods — was intended to demonstrate the seriousness of the threat. Yet even with classified briefings and public reporting in major newspapers, some European capitals remained unconvinced.
In Kyiv, the warnings were met with a mixture of dismissal and anxiety. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, elected on a peace platform in 2019, feared that publicly acknowledging the prospect of full‑scale war would provoke panic, crashing the economy and fracturing society. He interpreted the bluster as pressure and, at times, as attempts to leverage geopolitical tensions to extract concessions. Ukrainian intelligence agencies saw worrying signs — including aggressive Russian recruitment of officials at all levels and suspicious contacts arranged under the pretext of tourism — but the prevailing narrative remained that Russia would not risk a massive invasion. Many believed the worst that could occur was continued tension or a limited escalation in Donbas.
Across Europe, national intelligence services also split on their assessments. Some, including France and Germany, interpreted Moscow’s troop buildup as pressure tactics, not preparation for a decisive assault. Poland, traditionally hawkish on Russia, surprisingly did not foresee a full invasion either, believing that poorly equipped and trained Belarusian forces would play only a limited role in any military action. The assumption for many was that Russia might demonstrate a show of strength but not undertake an all‑out campaign toward Kyiv.
Yet in Washington and London, the picture appeared increasingly clear. By December, U.S. and British analysts had identified Russian plans showing multiple invasion routes, airborne operations directed at Hostomel airport outside Kyiv, and even alleged assassination plots against Zelenskyy. Briefings to Ukrainian leaders underscored the urgency, but the government continued to resist alarms. Zelenskyy’s public message in January 2022, urging calm and rejecting the idea of imminent war, proved catastrophic in hindsight as conflict erupted just weeks later.
The invasion began at 4:50 am on 24 February 2022, with missile strikes across Ukraine and a multi‑pronged ground assault ordered by Putin. For many Europeans, the shock was profound. France and Germany had negotiated to defuse tension just days earlier, with leaders returning from Moscow assuring their publics that war was unlikely. Meanwhile, Poland and other countries scrambled evacuations, while U.S. and British forces had already repositioned key intelligence assets.
The opening hours and days of the conflict tested longstanding assumptions about modern warfare. Western analysts had greatly underestimated Ukrainian resistance and overestimated Russian military effectiveness. They also misjudged the morale and leadership of Ukraine’s defenders. Zelenskyy, expected by many to flee or be targeted early in the invasion, instead emerged as a wartime figure of defiance, staying in Kyiv and rallying both his nation and global support.
The prolonged conflict revealed both the triumphs and limitations of Western intelligence. The CIA and MI6 had accurately discerned the existence and outline of Putin’s invasion plan — a rare intelligence success — but they could not compel belief or adequate preparation among allies and the Ukrainian leadership itself. European services had dismissed the warnings partly out of a reluctance to imagine a twenty‑first century war on European soil, partly out of distrust rooted in historical intelligence missteps, and partly due to optimism about diplomatic solutions.
Four years on, as Europe continues to grapple with the consequences of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the lessons remain vivid. As one German official put it, the experience has forced intelligence services to consider worst‑case scenarios more seriously than ever before. As geopolitical uncertainty deepens globally, the cautionary tale from Ukraine underscores a stark truth: dismissing scenarios because they defy conventional assumptions can have devastating consequences.
And for many involved in that pre‑war intelligence work, the lesson is clear — success in predicting war is only meaningful if the world is prepared to act on what it sees.
