Will he or won’t he? The question of whether or not Putin will order an invasion of Ukraine has occupied world politics for weeks. While US President Joe Biden regards such military maneuvers as “imminent” and NATO does not really trust the Russian President, he emphasized that he is already withdrawing his troops from the border. On Thursday, Putin expelled the country’s deputy US ambassador.
Shortly thereafter, a rumor circulated about a possible speech by Putin before parliament, which – if true – would be interpreted as a strong indication of an invasion.
Late in the afternoon, Gerhard Mangott, a university professor at the University of Innsbruck for international relations with a focus on Russia, tweeted that the rumor had come true. That would be “not a good sign,” said the expert, who knows what such a message would mean.
But Mangott deleted the tweet with this information, which he said he had obtained from a contact in the Russian Presidential Office, a few hours later with an apology. The message is wrong:
