A New Report Confirms the Existence of a Vast CIA “Stealth Network” of Spies and Commandos Operating Inside Ukraine...

HNewsWire:

As many expected, a new New York Times investigation confirms that the CIA is still actively involved in Ukraine, notably in training and coordinating armaments among its Ukrainian friends. US and European intelligence officials with knowledge of the activities were cited in The New York Times story as saying that "a covert network of commandos and spies racing to deliver weapons, information, and training" was involved. Even though they are outnumbered militarily by the Russians, Ukrainian troops are said to be "more than ever" dependent on this covert Western network.

The Russian invasion was sparked by an 8-year-old CIA secret effort to train Ukrainian troops, which investigative journalist Zach Dorfman revealed in a stunning Yahoo News exposé. After that March report, the only issue that remained was to what degree the CIA was still actively involved in the continuing war against the Russians invading.

It seems that the US program is not only operational and continuing, but also broader than previously assumed, since the CIA's close collaboration with Ukrainians is taking place both inside and outside of the nation, in different places. This is confirmed in a recent Times investigation.

There are bases in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom where a lot of this work is done. According to current and former officials, the C.I.A. has been operating in Ukraine secretly, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence that the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, despite the Biden administration's declaration that no American troops will be deployed to Ukraine.

According to reports, the CIA's mission in Ukraine seems to be heavily focused on intelligence coordination with local spy organizations and peers in the country. Few other details have emerged about the activities of the C.I.A. personnel and commandos, but their presence in the country — on top of the diplomatic staff members who returned after Russia gave up its siege of Kyiv — indicates the scope of the secretive effort to assist Ukraine that is currently underway and the risks that Washington and its allies are taking, according to the NY Times.

Canada has also been rumored to have special forces personnel in Ukraine during the weekend. In a subsequent article, the New York Times confirmed that this was really the case. National Defense has not commented on the deployment, which was revealed by CTV and Global News in late January, Ottawa Citizen reports. Yahoo News broke the following story in January, more than two months before the invasion:

According to five former intelligence and national security officials, the CIA is running a covert intense training program in the United States for elite Ukrainian special operations troops and other intelligence operatives. According to several of those sources, the program, which began in 2015, is housed at a secret location in the South.

As Russian soldiers have gathered on Ukraine's eastern border in preparation for an invasion, CIA-trained forces might play a pivotal role. The U.S. and Russia began security discussions in Geneva earlier this week, but no deal has been reached so far.

According to a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government, the Biden administration has further enhanced the covert program, which is run by paramilitaries working for the CIA Ground Branch — now officially known as the Ground Department. The program was established by the Obama administration in 2014 following Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea, and it was expanded under the Trump administration.

As a result of these new revelations, it seems that NATO and Russia are really engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine, a claim that Biden administration officials have previously tried to minimize and reject.

According to the New York Times, the CIA is completely clueless about what's going on in Ukraine.

17 days later, the New York Times reports that the Ukraine is teeming with CIA agents. pic.twitter.com/zlea6upOWm
(@caitoz) — Caitlin Johnstone 25th of June, 2022

Further, the New York Times reports, Ukraine's on-the-ground aid is transnational in character. It's also worth noting that a small number of commandos from other NATO nations (such as Britain and France) have also been operating in Ukraine."

That caveat is included in the report, which states that "The United States withdrew its own 150 military instructors before the war began in February, but commandos from these allies either remained or have gone in or out of the country since then, training and advising Ukrainian troops and providing an on-the-ground conduit for weapons and other aid."

This definitely shows that the CIA activities in Ukraine that had been going on for eight years didn't stop or come to an end when Russia invaded on February 24, but instead expanded and were stepped up. With regards to U.S. military special operations forces in the nation, as well as in Poland, the same can be said.

Russian officials reacted angrily on Sunday to the "leaks" of secret programs by Western mercenaries and operatives in Ukraine, even as the Kremlin pointed out that Washington has refused to answer simple questions about Western operatives and mercenaries in Ukraine despite the recent capture of two American fighters.

A few months ago, you were considered an out-of-control disinformation operative if you even guessed that the CIA and NATO had "boots on the ground" in Ukraine, but now the New York Times has confirmed this. On June 26, 2022, Michael Tracey (@mtracey)

The Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated Sunday that Russia's foreign policy is based on international cooperation. Russian Ambassador to London, Andrey Kelin, said: 'They're writing very outrageous, vulgar things.' When we inquire about their actions, they refuse to provide an explanation.

According to her, the West is doing all it can to keep the crisis in Ukraine going for as long as possible. Ukraine's objective is to murder as many Russians as possible, according to US 43rd President George Bush Jr. They have given Ukraine and the Kiev government this task.

As [UK Prime Minister] Boris Johnson informed [French President-elect Emmanuel] Macron today, they are using Ukraine as a tool and the whole logistics are based on that - arms supplies, deploying people, everything to keep the fire burning and impede the settlement of this issue. "If they don't, their scheme will collapse," Zakharova warned, according to TASS.

According to a Report, an 8-Year CIA Program Played a Role in Provoking the Russian Invasion

According to Yahoo News, which cited former US officials, CIA paramilitaries have been training Ukrainian troops on the front-lines of the Donbas battle against Russian-backed rebels since 2014 and were only removed by the Biden administration last month.

The CIA first dispatched a limited number of paramilitaries to eastern Ukraine when the conflict began in 2014, prompted by a US-backed coup in Kyiv and Donbas rebels proclaiming independence from the post-revolution government.

CIA paramilitaries trained Ukrainian soldiers sniper skills, how to use US-supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles, and how to avoid being monitored on the battlefield using secret communications and other ways as part of the training. According to former officials, the CIA was first astonished by Russia's and the rebels' capabilities when compared to US opponents in the Middle East.

Similar training operations for Ukrainian soldiers in western Ukraine have been officially recognized by the US military. Yahoo News disclosed in January that the CIA was also running a training program for Ukrainian military in the United States. According to a former CIA officer, the US-based program was used to train "an insurgency" and teach Ukrainians how to "kill Russians."

The covert CIA operation in eastern Ukraine was even more controversial than the previous training programs since it implied that the US was engaged in a proxy war on Russia's border. According to the former officials, National Security Officials evaluated the program, which began during the Obama administration, throughout the first year of the Trump administration.

The CIA paramilitaries were told to advise and train but not to fight. Officials in the Trump administration were concerned that the authority were too wide and the purpose was too unclear. According to one former official, the following questions were asked: "How far can current covert action authorities take you? Is it an issue if, God forbid, they shoot some Russians? Do you need specific permission for that?"

According to the former official, the Trump administration considered Russia's red-lines and found that US assistance for Ukrainian troops was within historically acceptable parameters. "There was a school of thinking that Russians spoke the good old language of proxy war," added the official.

CIA paramilitaries quickly realized that, in Russia and its proxies, they were up against a foe whose capabilities considerably outmatched those of the Islamist organizations that the CIA had been fighting in the post-9/11 battles. "We picked up a lot quickly." https://t.co/IlSxf4wAIW
March 16, 2022 — Zach Dorfman (@zachsdorfman)

Despite the worries, the covert program was carried out for many years until February. According to the former officials, as the threat of a Russian invasion became "increasingly apparent," the Biden administration evacuated all CIA agents from Ukraine, including paramilitaries. According to one former official, the Biden administration was "terrified of even covert people being on the front-lines."

Although it is difficult to tell what the military situation in Ukraine is like, the US thinks Ukraine is putting up a far stronger fight than Russia anticipated. Former officials who talked with Yahoo News stated that the CIA training program had a role in the opposition. President Biden has already given over $1 billion in fresh military assistance to Ukraine since the assault began.