- President Joe Biden said Friday that people think he is “exaggerating” about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Prior to the invasion, it was reported that Zelensky believed Biden’s comments were causing panic.
- The US director of national intelligence said this week that Biden had declassified the information to persuade allies.
Ukrainian President Joe Biden said on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not want to hear US intelligence that indicated Russia is about to invade Ukraine.
Biden made the remarks while speaking to donors in Los Angeles, California, about his continued support for Ukraine, according to The Associated Press.
“Nothing like this has happened since World War II,” the newspaper quoted Biden as saying. “I know a lot of people thought I might be exaggerating.” He added that the United States had data showing that Russian President Vladimir Putin was on his way to invade.
“There was no doubt,” Biden continued. And Zelensky didn’t want to hear it.
Before launching a large-scale invasion on February 24, Russia spent weeks building up its forces on the Ukrainian border, fueling speculation about whether or not they were preparing for an invasion, a claim denied by the Kremlin.
In late January, after US officials said Putin would likely invade soon, an unnamed Ukrainian official told CNN that that Zelensky had asked Biden to “calm messages” about the invasion Because it caused panic.
On Monday, US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that Biden even declassified intelligence about the Russian invasion Trying to convince skeptical allies that this will indeed happen.
Since the start of the war, the United States has given tens of billions of dollars Aid to Ukraineincluding thousands of arms.
Ukraine has successfully repelled the invasion of some of its largest cities, including the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv, but fighting continues in the eastern Donbass region, where Russian forces have refocused.
