I can't speak to anyone in Ukraine as I don't know what was being reported there, but from the basic media reports I saw in western Europe it was clear.
Russia had built up a similar sized ground force in the border in past years, either as drills or threats. Those never included major naval movements though, and definitely didn't include blood supply on the front lines.
As soon as the blood showed up a week before the Olympics everyone should have known it was game on, even if naval actions alone could be written of as not a sure sign.
Well unfortunately that says something about the French intelligence.
I really don't mean this as a condescending arm chair quarterback statement. The intelligence agencies would clearly have access to much, much more information than a civilian. That said, I don't know who, with any level of military understanding, would expect medical facilities and large amounts of blood to be setup and delivered to the front line of fear mongering campaign.
Ukraine was quietly telling everyone to shut up because it was frantically trying to position troops and equipment. Had it been officially acknowledged these trips and equipment would have been trying to smash through an onslaught of refugees fleeing the east, thus helping Russia to face less pushback and effectively ceding the territory as Ukrainians fled and ethnic Russians stayed.
This seems 100% plausible, though its one I haven't seen anything necessarily to corroborate. It makes total sense though and would be a reason for silence.
Edit: rereading this theory, it does read pretty terribly for any civilians living there. Effectively, in that scenario the government decided to mislead the public in order to purposely keep civilians in harm's way rather than allow them to flee (and get in the way). This matches my cynical views of government, but if true it should still piss off a number of people that actually believe governments are there to serve us above all else.
Just to circle back, I'm pretty sure it was Oleksii Arestoyvich who said it. I can't find the video. I think I saw it on Good Times Bad Times youtube channel.
> government decided to mislead the public in order to purposely keep civilians in harm's way
It doesn't look so as Ukrainian government made a huge effort to evacuate the population from the war zone when the conflict started. It's just that they prioritized moving assets to the front (winning the war). Though I agree with you, governments doesn't serve the population but rather themselves.
Russia had built up a similar sized ground force in the border in past years, either as drills or threats. Those never included major naval movements though, and definitely didn't include blood supply on the front lines.
As soon as the blood showed up a week before the Olympics everyone should have known it was game on, even if naval actions alone could be written of as not a sure sign.