“We have reason to believe they are engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in.” Biden says Russia is preparing pretext to invade Ukraine. And, Blinken lays out Putin’s playbook for Ukraine invasion at UN hearing. “U.S. intelligence suggests Russia’s attack will unfold in several stages, starting with a manufactured pretext.”

+ The US strategy is to lay out exactly what intel suggests Putin will do in the hopes that it will delay or prevent him from doing it. But Putin is already at war with Ukraine. It’s just not as visible as traditional warfare. ‘Kill Your Commanding Officer’: On the Front Lines of Putin’s Digital War With Ukraine. “The Russians have for nearly a decade used Ukraine as a proving ground for a new and highly advanced type of hybrid warfare — a digital-meets-traditional kind of fighting defined by a reliance on software, digital hardware and cognitive control that is highly effective, difficult to counter and can reach far beyond the front lines deep into Ukrainian society. It is a type of high-tech conflict that many military experts predict will define the future of war. It has also turned Ukraine, especially its eastern provinces, but also the capital, into a bewildering zone of instability, disinformation and anxiety.” (Bewildering zone of instability, disinformation and anxiety wouldn’t be a bad tagline for the internet…)