Ukraine

Exclusive: Top UK general says decision to publish Putin's Ukraine invasion plan was to 'pre-bunk' his lies

Watch: General's plan was to 'pre-bunk' Putin's lies.

One of Britain's top military chiefs says the decision to publish Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion plan of Ukraine on social media a week before he did it was to "pre-bunk" his lies.

General Sir Jim Hockenhull, the Commander of Strategic Command, described the decision as "brave" and an attempt to get the "truth out first".

The general decided to use social media to put intelligence information into the public domain, in advance of the Russian invasion in February 2022, in a way that had not been seen before.

General Hockenhull said "strategic patience" is required as the conflict continues and the UK should be prepared for it to last for a considerable length of time.

He told Forces News' Sian Grzeszczyk: "A week before the invasion, we put a tweet out showing Putin's invasion plan.

"Now that felt a brave thing to do at the time, as the chief of Defence Intelligence, but I felt it a necessary thing, particularly where you're against an adversary that you know is going to lie.

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"Once that lie is out in the public domain, it has its own life and it's very difficult to get back under control.

"Rather than to debunk their lies, I was trying to 'pre-bunk' their lies and get the truth out first so that when they lied, it would be shown to be the hollow lie that it was.

"I think intelligence is changing in terms of how we use it. I'm kind of getting to the point, I think, of becoming more comfortable with it, however, doing interviews like this still feels slightly odd to a professional intelligence officer who spent the first 30+ years of my career making sure that I was never in the building when a journalist might be near, so I'm having to learn a few things as well."

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It comes as a top Nato military official has warned that all-out war with Russia is a possibility within the next 20 years.

Speaking after a meeting of Nato defence chiefs, Admiral Rob Bauer told reporters private citizens need to ready themselves for a potential conflict that would change their lives.

Almost two years on from the Russian invasion, General Hockenhull told Forces News his memory of the moment: "I think we knew quite a long way in advance that what we thought was going to happen.

"Of course, there was always a possibility that President Putin could have chosen a different path, but we were fairly sure from quite a distance out over what we thought would happen.

"I think I got home at about one o'clock in the morning. I'd been home for about an hour, I got a phone call to say that all the indications were that the attack was about to start, at which point I got back on my bicycle, cycled back into the Ministry of Defence and we went from there."

Keep an eye out for the rest of General Hockenhull's interview, published on forcesnews.com over the next week.