In the run-up to war, the White House and Downing Street made sensitive intelligence public. This strategy—dubbed “prebuttal”—went against the grain of intelligence practice. Biden repeatedly warned that Putin was about to invade and that Russia was preparing to launch false-flag chemical attacks—something that ultimately didn’t happen, possibly as a result of Washington’s preemptive tactics. Overall, the briefings wrong-footed the Kremlin and blunted its disinformation campaign.
