"William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had to make do with a phone call. It was November 2021, and US intelligence agencies had been picking up signals in the preceding weeks that Putin could be planning to invade Ukraine. President Joe Biden dispatched Burns, his CIA director, to warn Putin that the economic and political consequences if he did so would be disastrous."
"A secure line was ready in an office at the presidential administration building on Moscow's Old Square, and Putin's familiar voice came through the receiver. Burns laid out the US belief that Russia was readying an invasion of Ukraine, but Putin ignored him and ploughed on with his own talking points. His intelligence agencies had informed him, he said, that there was an American warship lurking over the Black Sea horizon, equipped with missiles that could reach his location in just a few minutes."
William Burns traveled to Moscow in November 2021 to warn that Russia might invade Ukraine. US intelligence had detected signals suggesting preparatory actions by Russia. President Biden sent Burns, then CIA director, to convey the potential economic and political disasters of an invasion. Putin avoided face-to-face meetings, staying at a Black Sea residence and taking the call via a secure line in Moscow. Putin dismissed the warnings, cited reports of an American warship with missiles, and emphasized perceived strategic vulnerability in a unipolar world. Burns left Moscow deeply concerned, told President Biden he believed an invasion would occur, and Russia invaded months later.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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