Many people in the know had been warning the world about Putin's true intentions and Western intelligence agencies were also in the know, but as you write, it had no effect. In 2010 former head of the Ukrainian Security Council, Volodymyr Horbulyn, wrote that Putin and his people decided upon the timeline for their solution to the "Ukraine problem" at a Kremlin meeting on December 25, 2008. Western decision makers were informed, yet did nothing.
Many people in the know had been warning the world about Putin's true intentions and Western intelligence agencies were also in the know, but as you write, it had no effect. In 2010 former head of the Ukrainian Security Council, Volodymyr Horbulyn, wrote that Putin and his people decided upon the timeline for their solution to the "Ukraine problem" at a Kremlin meeting on December 25, 2008. Western decision makers were informed, yet did nothing.