Almost exactly a year ago – on February 17 2022 – we published a story by David Galbreath, an expert in international security from the University of Bath. In it he pointed to the fact that – despite the Kremlin’s repeated assurances to the contrary – an invasion of Ukraine was looking more and more likely.
He provided three possible scenarios. The first was a decapitation of Ukraine via a rapid incursion through Belarus supported by pro-Moscow elements operating in Kyiv to remove the current government and replace it with a friendly administration. His second scenario was for a turbocharging of the war in the east which would spill out into the rest of the country –– or at least those areas with majority Russian-speaking populations, something Russia was to attempt in September when it annexed the four regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
The third scenario was a full invasion: combining the two aforementioned options with a push to completely defeat Ukraine’s military and take total control of the country.
