Burns’s message was direct: the US could see the Russian buildup. What was Putin’s intention? The scale of the Russian invasion force was staggering. By early 2022, according to US intelligence assessments, Russia would have close to 75 percent of its conventional forces postured against Ukraine. This included some 120 of Russia’s total estimated 160 battalion tactical groups, or BTGs—Russia’s primary combat units, encompassing seven hundred to nine hundred personnel, each with infantry, armor, artillery, and intelligence-gathering capabilities—all deployed about forty miles from Ukraine.
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