But Hasan said Russia would never invade Ukraine.

This is one case where the missing context should not erase a real mistake. In a February 16, 2022 video, now deleted from Hasan's channel and preserved in an archived reupload, he said Russia had started pulling troops back after exercises, that Russia and Ukraine were 'never going to invade' one another, and that Western media had been fearmongering and banging the war drums. The prediction was made days before Russia's full-scale invasion on February 24.

On February 22, after Russia recognized separatist-held areas of Donetsk and Luhansk and sent troops into the Donbas under the label of 'peacekeepers,' Hasan posted a video titled 'I Was Wrong About Ukraine..' He admitted that he had not thought Putin would take that action, while still arguing that the development was less extensive than the U.S. media's most extreme predictions 'at least as of now.'

In a later WIRED interview, Hasan stated the mistake plainly: he said Russia would never invade Ukraine, because he believed Putin was a bad person but not a mad one. He said he apologized and continued to regard the invasion as an insane decision that caused enormous death, displacement, economic damage, and cruelty. A later transcript of Hasan revisiting the episode likewise records him saying, 'I was wrong,' while arguing that the invasion remained irrational and that he had opposed it from the beginning.

Hasan was overconfident, misread Putin's willingness to use force, and initially treated Western warnings with too much suspicion. He later corrected himself and repeatedly opposed the invasion.