• Kremlin officials told the Russian outlet Agency they didn’t know Putin was going to invade Ukraine.
• Sources said the Kremlin prepared for smaller sanctions over its recognition of Luhansk and Donetsk.
• “Everything is fucked,” a source close to Putin’s administration told Agency.

Kremlin officials say they didn’t know Russian President Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine, and were shocked by the severity of Western sanctions imposed upon it, the independent Russian investigative outlet Agency reported.

One unnamed senior official said people in the Kremlin “did not know” that it would be an all-out invasion and that many were shocked when news of the military assault broke, the outlet said.

In the run-up to the invasion, Putin’s cabinet had only prepared to deal with Western sanctions introduced over Russia’s decision to recognize the independence of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk on February 21, not for an invasion, a source close to Putin’s administration told Agency.

After Russia invaded, countries including the US and UK, as well as the EU, sanctioned Russian entities and individuals, seizing assets belonging to those closest to Putin and ejecting Russian banks from the SWIFT global financial system…read more.