On September 9, 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin called his American counterpart George W. Bush with an urgent message: Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban and Moscow-supported Northern Alliance, had been assassinated in Afghanistan by two suicide bombers posing as journalists. Putin warned Bush of “a foreboding that something was about to happen, something long in preparation.” Two days later al-Qaida struck the United States.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-impact-of-september-11-on-us-russian-relations/
“Why’d you ruin the surprise Vlad. I work very hard on this.”