Amazing BBC story about US-UK intelligence on Russia and Ukraine:

[Tomconroy]

Last edited Fri Apr 8, 2022, 11:12 PM - Edit history (1)

By autumn, Washington had decided it needed to do something with what it was being told by its spies. That decision, those involved say, was taken at the very highest level of the White House by President Biden.

A crucial moment came in early November when CIA Director William Burns travelled to Moscow - to warn that Washington knew what was being planned. The trip was not kept secret. The first time some Russian officials were told that their country might be seriously intending to act against Ukraine was when they heard it from the director of the CIA, one official says.

The next stage was to make some of the intelligence public. One individual involved in the discussions, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity, recalls times where it was asked: "What is the point of knowing all of this, if we can't do something with it?"

In Washington, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines - who briefed allies at Nato in November - and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are credited with pushing for the release of material. Experts on declassification, trained to understand the risks, began to work round the clock to establish what could be shared.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61044063


It would seem that the US and UK have sources in the heart of the Kremlin.

[WarGamer]

1. Sharing intel was a MAGNIFICENT idea...

and +++ for making it public.

Yaaaayyy for responsible adults in the WH

[stopdiggin]

6. +1. made all the difference in the world

(and you can take that in a literal sense as well)

------ -- ------

[OAITW r.2.0]

2. Open Source Intelligence.

It's not just for General's anymore. Probably a good thing.

[Samrob]

3. If they ae that close to Putin then Putin should be dead. nt

[PortTack]

5. If pootie were to have been killed much of that important info source would have gone with him

Killing off pootie would be nice, but the person most likely to replace him passed around recently would be no better, maybe worse

[lapfog_1]

4. you have to imagine that we have assets inside the Russian government

who the CIA kept hidden from Trump.

I remember rumors about this after the first Putin/Trump meeting... that Trump was demanding to know the identities of our spy network and the CIA was resisting telling him any details that could lead to exposing them...

I also remember that some were exposed and liquidated in Russia.

[Irish_Dem]

8. I think it is likely that Trump put US assets at risk.

And yes some may have been killed.

[OnDoutside]

7. A good piece but the last bit is silly.

But one assumption did prove wrong - that Moscow's military would prevail in a matter of weeks. Instead, the war would not turn out as many expected, with Ukraine outperforming militarily while Russia underperformed.

That is a reminder that intelligence has its limits - particularly in predicting some of the complexities of war and the uncertainties of people's morale and reaction. And for all its success before the war, Western spies concede that intelligence cannot tell them for sure what will happen next

Intelligence provides the data and the assessment, at the time they give that assessment. Had the West not flooded Ukraine with weapons and no doubt intelligence data, things could have followed a worse path.