Biden declassified intel about Russia's Ukraine invasion because allies didn't think it would actually happen, US spy chief says

• US allies were initially skeptical that Russia would invade Ukraine, the US director of national intelligence said.
• Biden ordered intelligence to be released so the potential of an invasion could be planned for, Avril Haines said.

In the run-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden decided to declassify intelligence about Russia's plans to convince skeptical allies that Russia would actually do it, the US director of national intelligence said.

"When we explained to our policymakers and our policymakers went to their interlocutors, they found that there was a fair amount of skepticism about it," Avril Haines told the RSA cybersecurity conference on Monday, CNN reported.

"As a consequence, the President came back to us and said, 'you need to go out and share as much as you possibly can and ensure that folks see what it is that you're seeing, so that we can engage again and perhaps have more productive conversations about how to plan for essentially the potential of a Russian invasion.'"

Haines said that allies had been sharing a lot of intelligence to combat Russia, saying that the "degree of sharing that we have done during this whole process has been extraordinary," Infosecurity reported.

Sir Jeremy Fleming, the head of the UK's Government Communications Headquarters intelligence agency, similarly said in March that spy bodies were releasing "deeply secret intelligence" in an effort "to get ahead of Putin's actions."

Haines did not name any policymakers or single out any individual countries, agencies, or people for being skeptical of the idea that Russia would invade.

US officials had from late last year repeatedly warned, despite Russia's denials, that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine as it massed troops near the two countries' border.

The New York Times noted in late January that the US was more vocal than many European countries in its warning of an invasion. Around that time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also told Biden to tone down his warnings of an invasion because it was creating unwanted panic, CNN reported at the time.

Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.