shame to admit, I wasn't able to predict the start of the war even though I was in Russia at that time. It's was always some news on the periphery of my brain. At somepoint there were news about the russian army "stopping their maneuvering" and I thought "ah, this was a scare tactic after all, no one is insane to start a war"
I guess in Russia they control the news. In the UK there was quite a lot of Russia about to invade stuff in the news. They even had the date down pretty much as it was assumed Putin was waiting for the end of the winter olympics so as to not annoy the Chinese.