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Biden administration still plans on revealing assessments of Russian intel, even as attack begins

From CNN's Kevin Liptak

The United States plans to continue its recent pattern of selectively revealing Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans as they learn them, officials said Thursday, even though it's now clear the strategy could not prevent an invasion of Ukraine.

Much of what Biden administration officials said would happen in Ukraine has come to pass, starting with various false pretexts for invasion in the pro-Russian regions, crisis talks among Putin's national security team, subsequent cyber-attacks and eventually missile attacks on Kyiv.

That is nearly exactly what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned would happen when he spoke last week at the United Nations.

US officials had hoped that by revealing Putin's plans, they could cause him to second guess himself or at least remove the element of surprise. By warning the world of "false flag" operations, the US hoped to deny Putin of an accepted rationale for going to war.

Now, officials say they expect to continue using the method, not necessarily to deter Putin — which hasn't proved successful — but to counter Russian claims about events on the ground. That could include rebutting Russian claims about atrocities or seeking to expose some of Putin's plans ahead of time.

On Wednesday, ahead of Russia's attack beginning, the White House said their strategy had been successful because it put Putin on the back foot.

"Our assessment is that President Putin did not expect the United States to have the level of information that we have, did not expect us to put out this amount of information that we have put out, did not expect the global community to be as unified, including in how unified the global community was in putting out the sanctions yesterday," press secretary Jen Psaki said. "Our assessment is that he is improvising, adapting, and we're having to respond and adapt his own actions as we are responding to him."