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Comment by dogma1138 | Hacker News Reader

Not really as it was clear that he intends to invade for a long time.

If he is completely deranged and wants to start a nuclear war he could’ve done so without sacrificing so many Russian troops.

He can sit in his bunker and order a nuclear strike and even if most forces would disregard that order it only takes one launch to bring on the end of the world as we know it.

He knows he is running out of time and he wanted a new Russian empire to be his legacy but I don’t think turning Europe and North America into glass is on his todo list.

At least I hope not.

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Very few people accurately said he was going to invade. The president of Ukraine said like two days before hand that it was unlikely. Tryin to make specific predictions at this time about what he will or will not do is not a good idea.

> Very few people accurately said he was going to invade

Quite a lot of people said he seemed like he was going to, for quite a few weeks in advance, though they were trying to dissuade him, just counting people in the US government, NATO, etc.

> The president of Ukraine said like two days before hand that it was unlikely.

He said that the West needed to move forward the sanctions threatened for after an invasion to before, and that Russian behavior depended on immediate, united Western action.

The US media played up the part you refer to and downplayed the I assume our friends will heed my clearly-correct and urgent advice context, because they had a narrative they were selling of “Biden Admin sees imminent invasion, but the Admin is paranoid and everyone else, even the people who would be attacked, disagrees”.

The US clearly had some sort of intelligence that the order had already been given, but France and Ukraine, and other countries without access to that or skeptical of the source specifically said it was unlikely up until a day or two before. The point is that unless you have an advanced intelligence apparatus, trying to guess what Putin is going to do is meaningless at this point, you have to prepare for every eventuality. Here's an article clearly saying that invasion was not imminent based on Ukrainian intelligence on 20 Feb.[0]

[0] https://fakty.com.ua/ua/ukraine/20220220-reznikov-meta-kreml...

The US and NATO allies predicted it days in advance

Some knew months before: https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1473362460673515527

Nobody "knew" what would happen.

Some had very strong hunches. But that's not the same as "knowing".

Unfortunately, most people's predictions are no better than darts, and if you treat them all equally, of course you'd be lost. However if you're informed and know where to look, things start revealing themselves to you.

I'd been concerned about the buildup for a year, but was practically certain once the abrupt demands to NATO and Alperovitch's analysis came out 3 whole months ago:

https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1473362460673515527

If he is completely deranged and wants to start a nuclear war he could’ve done so without sacrificing so many Russian troops.

It's not so much that he "wants to" start a nuclear war.

The concern is whether he may end up doing that anyway -- if the moment arrives when he is sufficiently cornered and feels he has nothing more to lose.

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