Secretary of its Security Council Russia Nikolai Patrushev and the head of the FSB Alexander Bortnikov were the most ardent supporters of the armed intervention in Ukraine and the people who actually convinced President Vladimir Putin to go to war, writes the British newspaper The Times (In Putin’s bunker: how he kept the plan to invade Ukraine a secret). The newspaper publishes excerpts from a forthcoming book by journalist Owen Matthews, which, according to the author, is based, among other things, on conversations with Russian operatives who are aware of the preparations for the invasion.

According to the author, Patrushev, Bortnikov and other like-minded siloviki were convinced of the need for a “preemptive” strike on Ukraine, emphasizing that this was necessary to save Russia from the supposedly growing strategic threat from the West. The head of the National Guard, Viktor Zolotov, in a conversation with the director of the already closed Ekho Moskvy radio station, Alexei Venediktov, said that “Ukraine does not exist” and this is just a territory on which “the border between America and Russia.”

Among those who prepared the invasion, in addition to Patrushev and Bortnikov and Putin himself, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is mentioned. However, Shoigu himself, according to the information given in the book, did not play the role of an ideologist, but an executioner, never showing that he hesitated. However, Patrushev is mentioned as the most important figure in Putin’s circle.

The newspaper also reports that an important role in the isolation of the Russian president after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic was played by the fact that the circle of people with whom Putin consulted was significantly reduced, and the number of people who considered it necessary to put Ukraine under control in order to fight the West began to become the majority in this circle. Businessman Yuri Kovalchuk is mentioned as one of these people.

The fundamental decision to start a war was made, the author claims, at the end of the summer of 2021. However, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was tasked with trying to get major concessions from the West, avoiding war. Lavrov himself, the author writes, wanted to achieve a peaceful outcome of the confrontation and was convinced that Putin also wanted the same. The claims put forward by Russia on the so-called security guarantees, which the Russian Foreign Ministry issued in December 2021, were not accepted by the West. In fact, according to The Times, Western diplomats, including British diplomats, misinterpreted these allegations because they believed that Russia wanted to negotiate and persuade the West to make some concessions as part of a compromise, a time when the In fact, it was an ultimatum.

According to The Times, most of the Russian elite, even members of the Russian Security Council, did not know about Putin’s decision to go to war until February 21. It is also reported that the press secretary of Russian President Dmitry Peskov after the start of the war in a private conversation emphasized that most members of the Security Council (including Lavrov) were told that an imminent attack on Kyiv would take place after a meeting of this body (the Security Council), at which the recognition of the so-called “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics” would be discussed

At the same Security Council meeting on February 21, according to The Times, again citing Peskov, members were told that the meeting would be broadcast live. The meeting was indeed filmed.

Putin’s speech about launching the so-called “special military operation” was recorded on February 23, according to a British newspaper. The next morning, a full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

Russian government officials have yet to comment on the Times report.

Source: APE/MEB