The
Daily Beast has an important scoop on the US Intelligence failure on
Ukraine,
read
it all. Here is the key paragraph:
Despite
Russia placing 150,000 troops near Ukraine, John Kerry’s team didn’t
think Putin would invade Ukraine because Putin’s people said they
wouldn’t.
“There was good reason to think Putin wouldn’t do it. Russia’s Foreign
Minister, Sergei Lavrov told Secretary of State John Kerry that Russia
respected the territorial integrity of the Ukraine. U.S. intelligence
assessments concluded that the 150,000-man Russian military exercises
announced by Putin on Wednesday were not preparations for an invasion
of Ukraine because no medical units accompanied the troops. And Russian
and U.S. diplomats were still working on Iran and Syrian diplomacy. All
of this followed a successful Winter Olympic games for Putin’s Russia.”
[Full]
Mann Act