The Biden administration and intelligence agencies have repeatedly declassified and publicly revealed what their intelligence alleged Russia was planning in Ukraine.
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This practice has turned out to be an “amazing” deterrent, Gen. Richard Clarke, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, said on Friday at the Aspen Security Forum. He said he believes the U.S. should consider this strategy more often. The administration deviated from previous standard procedure in this strategy of preempting Russia’s aggression dating back to before the Russian military invaded Ukrainian territory on Feb. 24.
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“I think it’s been amazing, and I think it should make us look at how we do this in the future,” the commander said.
“I think now we have an opportunity to show that it’s the intelligence, when we can declassify it — and there are some things we want to keep secret, I absolutely acknowledge that, there are things that we need to keep secret to protect our own interest … I think we need to look harder at when and how and the rapid basis of which we can call out adversaries’ misbehavior,” he added.
At different times during the spring, National Security Council, defense, and other administration officials have warned about various possibilities ranging from the possible use of chemical weapons, or the targeting of bio-weapon facilities, to most recently the possibility of the annexation of various Ukrainian areas.
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Specifically, the Russians will look to annex the city of Kherson and all of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said during a White House press briefing on Tuesday. Tangentially, a day later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state media that Russia was expanding its operations further into Ukraine.
The administration also recently revealed that Russia was seeking to purchase “hundreds” of unmanned aerial vehicles from Iran, which is where Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to earlier this week.
