> Very few people accurately said he was going to invade

Quite a lot of people said he seemed like he was going to, for quite a few weeks in advance, though they were trying to dissuade him, just counting people in the US government, NATO, etc.

> The president of Ukraine said like two days before hand that it was unlikely.

He said that the West needed to move forward the sanctions threatened for after an invasion to before, and that Russian behavior depended on immediate, united Western action.

The US media played up the part you refer to and downplayed the I assume our friends will heed my clearly-correct and urgent advice context, because they had a narrative they were selling of “Biden Admin sees imminent invasion, but the Admin is paranoid and everyone else, even the people who would be attacked, disagrees”.

The US clearly had some sort of intelligence that the order had already been given, but France and Ukraine, and other countries without access to that or skeptical of the source specifically said it was unlikely up until a day or two before. The point is that unless you have an advanced intelligence apparatus, trying to guess what Putin is going to do is meaningless at this point, you have to prepare for every eventuality. Here's an article clearly saying that invasion was not imminent based on Ukrainian intelligence on 20 Feb.[0]

[0] https://fakty.com.ua/ua/ukraine/20220220-reznikov-meta-kreml...

Unfortunately, most people's predictions are no better than darts, and if you treat them all equally, of course you'd be lost. However if you're informed and know where to look, things start revealing themselves to you.

I'd been concerned about the buildup for a year, but was practically certain once the abrupt demands to NATO and Alperovitch's analysis came out 3 whole months ago:

https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1473362460673515527

The US and NATO allies predicted it days in advance

Some knew months before: https://twitter.com/dalperovitch/status/1473362460673515527

Nobody "knew" what would happen.

Some had very strong hunches. But that's not the same as "knowing".