Danilov: Russian invasion of Ukraine supposed to start on Feb 22, Kyiv was preparing for that
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was planned for February 22, and the Ukrainian authorities were preparing for the attack on that day, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov has said.
"We were aware of what would happen on the territory of our country. Moreover, the date of the attack was not February 24, but February 22. They were supposed to attack our country on February 22 in the format that we have now... We have a clear idea, that it should have been the 22nd. Our scouts in battle received orders that were issued on the 22nd and then corrected for the 24th," Danilov said in an interview with BBC, which was released on Thursday.
According to the NSDC secretary, the only surprise for Kyiv was that the occupiers used the territory of Belarus for the invasion. "There were discussions about this, but in the end we thought that it would be different. But it happened as it happened," Danilov said.
He said the Ukrainian authorities and Ukrainian society were preparing for war, and the best evidence of this is that Ukraine has been successfully holding the line for the 50th day.
"No intelligence service in the world gave our country more than 21 days. The head of French intelligence resigned on March 31 because he did not predict what would happen," the NSDC secretary said.
Danilov said that blaming the Ukrainian authorities for not preparing for war is "completely incorrect." "We could not go out and publicly say to the population: friends, the war begins on February 22. These are unacceptable things from the point of view of public administration. But we were preparing," he said.
The NSDC secretary said that since January 1, the law on national resistance started to operate in Ukraine. "We deployed territorial defense battalions in every territory. We understood what we would do. And when the decision was made on the first day to issue weapons to everyone who wanted to defend the country, do you think we could say in advance that we would issue weapons? No, everything went according to plan," Danilov said.
He said that when the Russian invasion started on February 24 at 03:40, the members of the National Security and Defense Council gathered from five to half past six in the morning, and they already had all the legal documents that needed to be adopted in advance.
"And whoever says that we have not prepared, he simply does not understand how all this happens," Danilov said.
