According to the information in the Washington Post newspaper, Russian spies were sure that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would die during the lightning attack on Kiev planned by Moscow, days before the war between the two countries began.
This estimate was made by Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, according to documents obtained by the Ukrainian security forces and strategic materials from Russia that the media reviewed.
These files show that President Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian government employees even received communications from Moscow agents advising them to round up and leave the Ukrainian capital.
According to the American newspaper, one of the excerpts from the intercepted communication shows a Russian officer telling a colleague to make a “successful trip” to Kiev, but the recipient of the message never reached the capital due to failure. in Russia’s plans.
“The Russians were very wrong,” a senior US official with regular access to classified information about Russia and its security services told the Washington Post.
“They put up a whole war effort to achieve strategic goals beyond their means,” this official said. “Russia’s mistake was really fundamental and strategic,” he said.
The files also show that the FSB unit responsible for Ukraine has grown in the months leading up to the war and is supported by a large network of paid agents in the Ukrainian security apparatus.
Officials said some of these agents complied and sabotaged Ukraine’s defenses, while others pocketed FSB payments but failed to follow Kremlin orders when fighting broke out.
According to FSB polls obtained by the newspaper, a large part of the Ukrainian population was ready to resist the Russian invasion, and the information that Russian forces would be greeted as liberators was unfounded.
Despite this, Moscow continued to make optimistic assessments that the Ukrainian masses would welcome the arrival of the Russian army and the re-establishment of the Russian allied government.
The war between Russia and Ukraine began on February 24. After weeks of intense fighting in various parts of the country and an attempt to take Kiev, the Putin regime began to bring its work closer to the Donbass region, where the separatist Donetsk and Lugansk territories are located.
Another factor that contributed to Ukraine’s ability to fight against the Russian army was the assistance the country received from the international community and the sanctions Moscow received from various countries.
source: Noticias
