Shocking text. “We think it’s safer to wait for the Russians (...) Stay safe". That was the French ambassador in Kyiv, writing to the European ambassadors’ Signal group on 24 February 2022, as explosions were already going off in the city. Lots of EU States participated in this most important diplomatic, military and analytical blunder of this age). For 3 months Dutch intelligence kept telling Prime Minister Rutte that an invasion was “unlikely". The agencies relied on a "trusted source" near the Kremlin who turned out to know nothing, because Putin shared the plan with maybe 10 people. USA put the Russian attack plan on the table. Western EU dismissed it. 12 hours before the tanks crossed the border, Russian forces had already changed how they communicated. But the official Dutch assessment still said war was merely “possible". The head of Germany’s BND was asleep in a Kyiv hotel when bombing started. Fled in a panic. Kept his job.