Europe didn't want to believe Russia would actually invade Ukraine even as the US kept warning it was coming, top EU diplomat says

• The EU's top diplomat said they didn't think Russia would invade.

• Two days before war broke out, the US warned of a big attack.

• Josep Borrell said they were reluctant to believe it.

The White House warned that conflict was imminent in the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Ukraine.

The European Union's top diplomat said on Tuesday that Europe did not want to believe that Russia would attack its eastern European neighbor.

The EU's foreign and security policy chief said that some things have happened in the past that they knew could happen.

We didn't think the war was going to happen. I have to be aware of that in the city. The Americans told us that they would attack and we were reluctant to believe them.

The Secretary of State phoned me and said that it was going to happen this weekend. He recalled that at 5 o'clock in the morning, Russia began bombing the city.

In January 2021, as Russia gathered tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, US officials warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to start a large-scale conflict at any moment.

By mid-February, the White House said the risk of an immediate invasion was very high, and the US told Ukraine that a major assault was likely about to start. Russian forces invaded with the expectation that Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops would win quickly.

Borrell said on Tuesday that Europe didn't know how well Ukraine would defend itself against the Russians.

"We did not believe that this was going to happen, and we didn't anticipate that Ukraine was ready to resist as fiercely and as successfully as they are doing," Borrell said, crediting European arms deliveries and military support with aiding the fight.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said last month that the EU was wrong to ignore countries that warned of Putin. Russia's neighbors have said that they were correct in their warnings.

Von der Leyen said that the war taught them to listen to those who know Putin.

After more than seven months of war, Ukrainian forces have been able to stage counteroffensives along the war's eastern and southern fronts. As a result of these military setbacks, Putin's troops have begun using suicide drones and missiles to strike civilian areas far from the front lines.

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