The New York Times explained why in a column published two days ago. The Ukraine is an outpost for the CIA to wage war against Russia, and has been for a long time.
But the partnership is no wartime creation, nor is Ukraine the only beneficiary.
It took root a decade ago, coming together in fits and starts under three very different U.S. presidents, pushed forward by key individuals who often took daring risks. It has transformed Ukraine, whose intelligence agencies were long seen as thoroughly compromised by Russia, into one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.
The article goes on to say:
Around 2016, the C.I.A. began training an elite Ukrainian commando force — known as Unit 2245 — which captured Russian drones and communications gear so that C.I.A. technicians could reverse-engineer them and crack Moscow’s encryption systems. (One officer in the unit was Kyrylo Budanov, now the general leading Ukraine’s military intelligence.)
And the C.I.A. also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated inside Russia, across Europe, and in Cuba and other places where the Russians have a large presence.
The relationship is so ingrained that C.I.A. officers remained at a remote location in western Ukraine when the Biden administration evacuated U.S. personnel in the weeks before Russia invaded in February 2022. During the invasion, the officers relayed critical intelligence, including where Russia was planning strikes and which weapons systems they would use.
“Without them, there would have been no way for us to resist the Russians, or to beat them,” said Ivan Bakanov, who was then head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U.
To be absolutely clear, training and coordinating commandos to attack another country is an act of war. Not a war that was made known to Americans, it is a secret undeclared war by the CIA. It’s funny to me that our media constantly accuses Russia of being a “mafia state” yet it is the USA, not Russia, that is a mafia state. Entities within the government carrying out their own agenda is exactly what happens in a mafia state, or perhaps it is better described as a pseudo-state, several corporations in a trench coat.
This is also an admission of a fact I considered very obvious from the beginning and was confirmed by the Pentagon leaks: the USA is spending substantial sums of money on ISR against Russia.. I said this in a previous post:
Not to say NATO aid is useless, it’s definitely not. Funnily enough, what I consider to be the most absolutely crucial NATO programs are also the ones that get the least fanfare. NATO has probably trillions of dollars in accumulated ISR networks which they’ve focused almost exclusively on Ukraine. If the UAF was fighting blind, they probably would have lost almost immediately.
Just to be absolutely clear, this is an act of war. The article outright admits to the CIA participating in “lethal operations” – aka, murdering Russian citizens.
As the partnership deepened after 2016, the Ukrainians became impatient with what they considered Washington’s undue caution, and began staging assassinations and other lethal operations, which violated the terms the White House thought the Ukrainians had agreed to. Infuriated, officials in Washington threatened to cut off support, but they never did.
“The relationships only got stronger and stronger because both sides saw value in it, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv — our station there, the operation out of Ukraine — became the best source of information, signals and everything else, on Russia,” said a former senior American official. “We couldn’t get enough of it.”
Another element of US support that I have commented on before is alerting Ukrainians to the schedule of Russian satellites, enabling the UAF to reposition their forces at opportune moments. In other words, allow their troop concentrations to be photographed in one place, and then move them after Russian satellites already passed by. This is likely much more difficult to do now after Russia launched more satellites, but in the early phases of the SMO such help was a game changer, in my opinion even more so than the weapon shipments.
The NYT author tries to dress this up as Ukrainians eagerly helping a reluctant CIA, but this admission makes it worse not better. American representatives trying to coerce Ukraine could be resolved through diplomatic means, Ukrainians eagerly serving as the CIA’s mercenaries cannot.
Ian Kummer
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