I mean, I can understand Zelensky talking it down; as the public face of Ukraine's government, I assume everything he says is propaganda of some kind (whether or not it's true).
But back in December, the satellite photos were showing the huge build-up of troops and armour on Ukraine's border. I didn't believe it was just an "exercise", nor did I believe it was sabre-rattling. I was convinced that an invasion was imminent.
I paid no attention to Snowden's opinion; he was a guest of the Russian government, and couldn't easily flee Russia.
It's actually not that complicated. The US intelligence services relied on high-level sources, essentially the military's plans for invasion, to come to its conclusions. European intelligence services tended to rely on low-level sources (the status of the units in question) instead. It turns out that the units were, even on the eve of the invasion, simply not ready for an invasion, and the European intelligence had sussed that out. In effect, when the US reported to the Europeans that Russia was preparing for war, the Europeans went "With what army? This one clearly ain't ready for war."
Combine those contradictory signals with the preconceptions that people had. The US intelligence had badly misfired during the Iraq War. There is a (not entirely undeserved) tendency to view the US as excessively warmongering. Putin had a (mostly undeserved) reputation of being a skillful and crafty manipulator. And Russia engaging in naked territorial aggression would require painful reassessments of 30 years of Russia policy (not least of which is the degree to which Europe depended on Russian gas). With all of that weighing against believing the US intelligence, it should be no surprise that Europeans did so.
I have since learned to listen to what Pentagon has to say in this conflict, because their intelligence (and what they decide to share with the public) has proved to be on point.
Russia actually invading Ukraine full-on was the most irrational and self-destructive thing Putin could've done. By all measures it was and still is a terrible idea. Only if you thought Putin was a madman you could've predicted it but before the invasion that wasn't his reputation at all IMO. I think he was seen as relatively pragmatic and rational (for a thug).
It wasn't just a good-faith prediction, he was quite cocky and arrogant about that[0], including, ironically, accusing others of amplifying disinformation campaign:
"So... if nobody shows up for the invasion Biden scheduled for tomorrow morning at 3AM, I'm not saying your journalistic credibility was instrumentalized as part of one of those disinformation campaigns you like to write about, but you should at least consider the possibility."
At the same time he didn't appear too fazed by the invasion after it had begun, just casually accused others of concern-trolling[1] and "happily and thankfully" accepted Russian citizenship[2].
> I can’t be bothered to explain it more than this because any ability to not see this means I’m wasting my time explaining it further
I'm engaging in this discussion constructively and provide links to support my position. You preemptively accuse me of willful ignorance, but after re-reading his tweets I still stand by my words.
[0]: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1493641714363478016
[1]: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1498049577131208705
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/02/edward-snowd...
https://time.com/3107684/snowden-nsa-syria-cybersecurity/
He didn't provide any proof for this and anyone who questioned Assad's dedication to a free and unfiltered Internet was apparently an NSA shill.
That was when the world should have learned that he had been turned by Russian intelligence.
