According to the New York Times, the CIA has been present on Ukrainian soil for around ten years and has established a partnership there with Kiev. Several bases were discreetly established to help Ukrainians monitor their Russian rival.
Follow full coverage
Ukraine: two years of war
The CIA on the front lines of the conflict in Ukraine. The New York Times revealed this weekend that U.S. intelligence has secretly established as many as a dozen bases along the front lines. A long-standing collaboration: the two countries have been exchanging strategic information for around ten years. More precisely, since 2014.
At that time, Ukraine lived to the rhythm of the Maidan Revolution, named after the central square in Kiev where demonstrators gathered. Questionable ? The last-minute refusal of the then pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to sign a rapprochement agreement between Ukraine and the EU under pressure from Moscow. After the bloody crackdown on the protest, in which around a hundred people died, the leader fled to Russia. The new leadership team then decided to turn to the West. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, head of the secret service, offers the CIA and the British MI6 a partnership.
Recruiting spies under CIA supervision
According to the New York Times, Kiev and Washington will quickly find this new alliance beneficial. In fact, Ukraine would have transmitted information about Russia's involvement in the Malaysia Airlines crash in 2014. Then, in 2016, data on Russian disinformation during the American presidential election.
Years later, the Americans will return the favor to Kiev. Since the Russian invasion, the CIA has reportedly provided intelligence on missile attacks or enemy troop movements. It also helps recruit and train Ukrainian spies. This program even has a name: “Operation Goldfish.” The officers supervised by the CIA joined Unit 2245 before being stationed at one of the bases set up on the border with Russia. Among them: Kyrylo Boudanov, who would later become a general at the head of Ukrainian military intelligence.
A bunker built under a former Ukrainian military base
According to the New York Times, the Americans are participating behind the scenes in the standoff between Kiev and Moscow. For example, an attack on Volodymyr Zelensky was foiled by the CIA, according to a senior Ukrainian official interviewed by the daily. Another example ? The repeated visits of William J. Burns, the head of the agency, to Ukraine. The latter was also present in Kiev last Thursday, his tenth visit there since the beginning of the war. It must be said that the agency has several bases on site. A dozen bases would have been financed primarily by the Americans.
In particular, the daily describes a bunker discreetly constructed among the ruins of a military base destroyed by the Russians at the start of the war. In this basement, teams of Ukrainian soldiers “track Russian spy satellites and listen to conversations between Russian commanders.” On a screen, a red line traced the path of an explosive drone that crossed Russian air defenses from a point in the middle of Ukraine to a target in Russia City of Rostov,” our colleagues report.
also read
“They didn’t expect the slightest resistance”: How the secret services misled Putin
On the American side, we would be aware that this proximity to Kiev could annoy Vladimir Putin. U.S. officials have often been reluctant to engage fully for fear of provoking the Kremlin. Same story from a senior European official: In an interview with the newspaper, he states that “Towards the end of 2021, Putin was considering whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia's most important spy agencies, who told him that the CIA, in collaboration with MI-6, controlled Ukraine and made it a bridgehead for operations against Moscow.”
TG