alt Hacker NewsIn hindsight, it's easy to be smart. You picked two examples where somebody said "never gonna happen" and then it happened. How about the countless examples where somebody said the same and then the thing actually didn't happen?
Take millions playing the lottery. To each of them, I can confidently say "you won't win, not gonna happen". For almost all of them I'll be right. There will be one who wins, were I was wrong, and they will say "see, told you so". That doesn't mean my prediction was wrong. It means you are having a reporting bias.
GP also probably had a sampling bias. The ones who were actually concerned about the impending Russian invasion presumably fled out of the country (or at least, away from the major cities to rural areas that probably see less fighting)