Thread by @SabFis3

Exactly one year ago today I left #Moscow, the city I had been traveling to, working and living in for so many years, with apocalyptic feelings.

I had spent one week talking to people from the foreign policy community, sociologists, civil society activists, friends.
🧵(1/17)

https://twitter.com/SabFis3/status/1495391517459972097

Until Thursday (17/2) foreign policy experts were absolutely convinced that there would be no war. Remember, Moscow and Western capitals were still discussing the Russian “treaty proposals” on “security guarantees”. (2/17)

German Chancellor #Scholz visited Moscow on Tuesday (15/2) of that week. No, no, no, most colleagues would say, #Putin is using diplomatic pressure (what they meant was: blackmail) to get some concessions out of the US and the “collective West”. (3/17)

He will unpack the package eventually + drop his most outrageous demands. But they also said: IF “Ukraine attacks us”, IF we are “forced to fight back”, THEN “we” will strike back, “we” will take Kyiv within a few days, there will be regime change, Ukraine will be divided. (4/17)

The West will not be able to sustain its support - look at Afghanistan… But no, no, no…

Liberals were much more skeptical and worried. And very clear-eyed about the domestic consequences of a military escalation. IF there will be war
(5/17)

(I believe I never heard so many “Ifs” -eslis- in one week of conversations) we will have military censorship and a war dictatorship here within days, one of my trusted interlocutors said. And they were right. It took the regime from 24 Feb to 4 March to establish
(6/17)

military censorship, break the emerging antiwar movement, and turn Russia’s autocracy into a full-blown dictatorship.

On Thursday (17/2) the US ambassador went to the MFA to receive the Russian answers to the US/NATO answers to Putin’s treaty proposals.
(7/17)

I was at the MFA at the same time, having a surreal conversation with some diplomats about EU-Russia relations and the situation around Ukraine. Of course, they assured me that there would be no war… When I left the ministry
(8/17)

the documents that had been handed to the US ambassador had already been published on the MFA website. They sounded bad.

The next day, Friday (18/2), the thugs in control of the occupied territories in #Donetsk and #Luhansk announced “mass evacuations” of the population
(9/17)

to “safe” Russian territory. State controlled media reported about explosions in the territories. Now it dawned on people that something really, really bad was coming. I spent the evening in my friends’ kitchen. We sat up until 3am, no one could go to bed.
(10/17)

Чтобы только не было войны - let there be no war, is what we said every time we raised our glasses.

On Saturday (19/2) I had my last meetings. One person told me: there will be a war after which we will not recognize Ukraine.
(11/17)

The only accurate prediction I heard during that whole week. When I reminded them a few months later they said: but THIS I did not see coming.

On Sunday, 20/2, I went home to Berlin, thinking: now everything is possible. In fact, putting the pieces together,
(12/17)

people had given me a pretty clear picture of what was going to happen in the coming days. On 21 Feb, #Putin declared, in a speech full of hatred, anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western resentment, the “recognition” of #Donetsk and #Luhansk as “independent states”.
(13/17)

In the morning hours of 24 Feb Putin ordered the Russian armed forces to attack #Ukraine. The catastrophe took its course.

One year later we know many of the hypothetical assumptions of my interlocutors on #Ukraine and the course of the #war were entirely wrong.
(14/17)

#Ukrainians fought back with unimaginable bravery + resolve, Western support continues and has reached unprecedented scale. Not a single one of #Putin’s war goals has been achieved. Some of the people I spoke to during that week and many other friends and colleagues
(15/17)

are in exile, scattered across Europe and the US. Others are part of the propaganda machine legitimising #RussiaInvadedUkraine. #Putin and his supporters are among the biggest war criminals of our time. They are responsible for thousands and thousands of dead,
(16/17)

wounded and traumatized, they have inflicted unspeakable damage and sorrow upon Ukraine.

Let us hope that they will be held accountable while we are commemorating the first sad anniversary of the events that led to the war in the coming days.

#StandWithUkraine

(17/End)