President Joe Biden praised the Central Intelligence Agency’s efforts to expose Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine, telling the staff that they had “punched a gigantic hole” in President Vladimir Putin’s objectives. 

“It was thanks to the incredible work of our intelligence professionals that we were able to forewarn the world what Vladimir Putin was planning in Ukraine,” Biden said during his first visit as president to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. “We saw what he was doing. You saw it, the forces he was amassing, the plans he was making.”