War in Ukraine, Sergei Lavrov did not know about the invasion – he was woken up at night

Putin “has only three advisers: Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.” Sergei Lavrov would have explained it like this choice of the Russian president to exclude his foreign minister since the decision to invade Ukraine that began on February 24 a year ago

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According to the Financial Times, the tsar in fact decided to start his own special military operation in secretspeaking to only a few trusted advisers, and keeping virtually the entire Moscow leadership, including Lavrov, in the dark

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The Foreign Minister “around 1 in the morning on 24 February, received a disturbing phone call: After months of preparing a 100,000-man invasion force on the borders with Ukraine, Vladimir Putin had given the green light to the invasion”

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The decision “took Lavrov totally by surprise,” writes the FT, which in its piece cites six longtime Putin confidants, people involved in the Russian war effort, and current and former top officials in the West. “Just days earlier, the Russian president had polled members of his security council on the possibility of recognizing the two territories in Donbass”, but “he had not told them of his true intentions”

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All top Kremlin leaders “knew about the invasion only when they saw Putin declare a special military operation on television that morning. During a meeting that same day with several oligarchs, “everyone was losing their minds” because they knew the sanctions would hit them hard, one of those present told the newspaper

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“One of the oligarchs asked Lavrov how Putin could have planned such a huge invasion with such a small circleso much so that most of the top Kremlin officials, the Russian economic cabinet and its business elite they didn’t believe it was possible

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“He has three advisers,” Lavrov replied. Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great'”. According to Putin’s invasion plan, “Russian troops were supposed to seize Kiev in a matter of days. But it didn’t, “it all went horribly wrong,” a former senior Russian official told the paper

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Despite that, Putin continues to insist on warwhile “majority of presidential administration and economic cabinet tell friends they oppose war”

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Increasingly isolated, the tsar therefore makes decisions only recommended by his inner circle. But “Putin’s demands for loyalty have only increased the incentive for advisers to tell him what he wants to hear.” Why the Russian president “prefers loyalty to competence”

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“Stalin was a villain, but a good manager, because he couldn’t be lied to. But no one can tell Putin the truth,” says one of the sources who know the tsar. “People who don’t trust anyone, they begin to trust a very small number of people who lie”

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