27. A Catastrophic Failure to Heed Warnings
Stalin also failed to heed numerous warnings of an impending invasion. Those who raised the alarm were punished, as Stalin insisted it was fake news, and just a plot engineered by the British to instigate a war between the USSR and Germany.
Soviet commanders were prohibited from taking precautionary measures, lest they provoke Hitler. Indeed, hours after the invasion had begun, Stalin disbelieved Soviet commanders reporting that they were being overrun, insisting that they were experiencing border incidents, not war.