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President Joe Biden said Friday that people thought he was “exaggerating” about Russia invading Ukraine.
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Prior to the invasion, reports said Zelenskyy thought Biden’s comments were causing panic.
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The director of US national intelligence said this week that Biden released information to convince allies.
President Joe Biden said on Friday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not want to hear US intelligence officials pointing out that Russia was about to invade Ukraine.
Biden made the comments during a conversation with donors in Los Angeles, California, about his continued support for Ukraine, according to The Associated Press.
“It hasn’t happened since World War II. I know a lot of people thought I might be exaggerating,” Biden said, according to the paper. He added that the US had data showing that Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade.
“There was no doubt about it,” Biden continued. “And Zelensky didn’t want to hear it.”
Before launching a full-scale invasion on February 24, Russia spent weeks building up its troops on the Ukrainian border, sparking speculation over whether or not it was preparing for an invasion, a claim the Kremlin denied.
In late January, after US officials said it was likely that Putin would invade soon, an unnamed Ukrainian official told CNN that Zelenskyy Biden had told him to calm down reports of the invasion because it sparked panic.
On Monday, US director of national intelligence Avril Haines said Biden had even released intelligence about the Russian invasion in an effort to convince skeptical allies that it was really going to happen.
Since the start of the war, the US has provided tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, including thousands of weapons.
Ukraine has successfully stopped invasions of some of its largest cities, including the capital Kiev and Kharkiv, but fighting continues in the eastern Donbas region, where Russian forces have refocused.
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