Throughout the months preceding Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the West was not speaking with one voice. While Washington and London insisted war was coming, Paris and Berlin told Kyiv the opposite.
As "Hvylya" reports, citing The Guardian's investigation, the split had profound consequences. "The Brits and Americans were saying it was going to happen," recalled one senior Ukrainian official. "But the French and Germans were telling him: 'Don't listen to this, it's all nonsense.'"
Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz still believed Putin could be talked out of an attack and both travelled to Moscow in February to plead the case for diplomacy. After six hours of talks in the Kremlin, Macron proudly announced he had "secured an assurance" from Putin that Russia would not escalate tensions.
The Americans read Moscow's signals very differently. In Biden's last phone conversation with Putin on 12 February, he found the Russian leader steely, determined, and utterly uninterested in any offers of negotiations.
Even in the final moments, French and German intelligence rejected the idea of a full-scale invasion targeting Kyiv. The French ambassador learned about it only when Russian missiles woke him in his high-rise apartment. "I think they took as a starting point: 'Why would he?' And we took as a starting point: 'Why wouldn't he?'" said a British defence intelligence official. "That simple semantic difference can lead you to wildly different conclusions." Since then, the relationship between Paris and Kyiv has evolved dramatically - the two countries are now engaged in joint weapons production, while the EU explores anchoring Ukraine's membership in any future peace deal.
