From the WP
article Road
to war: U.S. struggled to convince allies, and Zelensky, of risk of invasion
:
But Zelensky resisted calls to relocate his government and was adamant that he not panic the public. Down that path, he thought, lay defeat.
“You
can’t simply say to me, ‘Listen, you should start to prepare people now and
tell them they need to put away money, they need to store up food,’ ” Zelensky
recalled. “If we had communicated that — and that is what some people wanted,
who I will not name — then I would have been losing $7 billion a month since
last October, and at the moment when the Russians did attack, they would have
taken us in three days. ... Generally, our inner sense was right: If we sow
chaos among people before the invasion, the Russians will devour us. Because
during chaos, people flee the country.”
For
Zelensky, the decision to keep people in the country, where they could fight to
defend their homes, was the key to repelling any invasion.
Alexei Arestovich, an advisor to Zelensky, gives a
detailed explanation why Zelensky did not call the reserves in
December. ( 13 min into the video)
