• President Biden has announced a willingness to levy sanctions directly on President Putin.
o Putin has not publicly discussed Russian troop movements or acknowledged the tensions publicly since December 23rd. • Diplomatic efforts continue as leaders from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France are expected to meet in Paris today.
• The U.S. has promised to support European energy needs, working with MENA energy producers to ensure Western Europe is not without gas should Russia cut resources to the region.
• The U.S. has alerted more than 8,500 troops to be prepared to mobilize should a Russian invasion occur.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged calm in a video announcement stating, “Protect your body from viruses, your brain from lies, and your heart from panic.”
o Perhaps a reference to the ongoing cyber, information, and potential false flag attacks from Russia.
• Please also see our SITREP that we released January 19th titled “Russia on the Warpath.”

Why it Matters:

“There are two reasons Putin will not invade Ukraine (limited objective of the Donbass region): NATO agrees not to offer Ukraine membership into the alliance and NATO agrees to pledge no new expansion. With the ongoing dialogue, Russia will demand a response within two weeks. If not, Russia will invade. Xi Jinping’s ostensible request of Putin not to invade Ukraine before the Olympics seems both incredible and irrelevant. Not sure Putin cares about the ski jump, women’s giant slalom, or the half pipe.” – General Spider Marks

“I suspect that Russia is fully prepared for cyber offensive operations against Ukraine and NATO if they engage (both kinetic – a cyber-attack that leads to physical and potentially irreversible destruction and non-kinetic cyber – bringing down networks, denial of service, malware implants, and locking up or destroying data, etc.) as well as misinformation/disinformation campaigns. They are patient and will wait for their time and place to execute. Also, we will see increasing involvement from “Hacktavists” like the group of pro-democracy hackers calling themselves “Cyber Partisans” which claimed to have infiltrated the Belarusian rail network to disrupt Russian rail movements (troop and logistics).”– Admiral Danelle Barrett