Dmitry Kozak, Putin's deputy chief of staff and point man on Ukraine, only fully realized that an invasion was in the works on 21 February 2022 - the day Putin gathered his security council in one of the Kremlin's grand halls. Three days before the war began.
According to The Guardian's investigation, as reported by "Hvylya", Kozak had a reputation in Washington as a hardliner. But privately, he was horrified by the idea of an invasion.
A source close to Kozak told The Guardian he was the only person in the room brave enough to speak up. Arguing from a strategic rather than moral point of view, he told Putin that invading Ukraine would be a disaster. Even then, he did not know whether Putin was planning limited action in Donbas or a full-scale war.
After the meeting ended, Kozak continued to argue with Putin one on one in the large hall, the source said. The millions of Russians watching on television never saw any of this. They only heard Putin ask: "Are there any other points of view?" The question was met with silence.
The CIA estimated that just a handful of non-military officials knew about the detail of Putin's plans until very late. Kozak was kept in the dark alongside Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, two well-connected Russian sources confirmed. The irony: Kozak had been in regular contact with Zelensky's chief of staff Andriy Yermak as part of Donbas negotiations. If he reassured Yermak that the American panic was baseless, he most likely believed it himself. As we reported earlier, the war Putin launched has placed Russia's economy under mounting strain - exactly the catastrophe Kozak warned about.