For ten years, Russia has been waging a war in Ukraine.
His
“little green men”
first conquered Crimea, then financed, armed and trained the separatists of Donbass.
It was in the wake of this Russian interference that the CIA – the American “Central Intelligence Agency” – began to finance Ukrainian military intelligence bases, reveals the
New York Times
in an extremely in-depth investigation.
These bases would number a total of twelve, established along the Russian border and would still be active despite Russian bombings.
To discover
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On February 24, 2014, four days after the invasion of Crimea, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, appointed head of the SBU, Ukrainian intelligence, contacted the heads of branches of the CIA and MI6, British espionage.
“This is how it all started
,” he explains to our American colleagues.
The Americans set conditions: the Ukrainians will be helped and financed, but must not provide information that would lead to deaths.
But the SBU will prove extremely effective.
In 2015, General Valeriy Kondratiuk, then head of Ukrainian military intelligence, the GUR, brought the deputy head of the CIA a stack of documents containing detailed information on the design of Russian nuclear submarines.
Also read: CIA expertise to help Ukraine
In 2016, the Ukrainians launched a campaign of targeted assassinations, despite American reluctance.
The latter are complaining, but given the effectiveness of Ukrainian intelligence, they continue their support.
That same year, the head of the GUR, Valeriy Kondratiuk, received American aid to modernize its
“antennas”
, its listening capabilities in exchange for sharing information.
The CIA launched a program to train Ukrainian agents called
Operation Goldenfish
.
Officers trained in this way are deployed to military bases along the Russian border.
A fruitful collaboration
This partnership between the two countries has only one flaw: the United States is adamant that it will not encourage the Ukrainians to carry out clandestine operations in Russia.
After being refused an operation on Russian territory in Rostov, General Kondratiuk sent Unit 2245, a commando force disguised with Russian uniforms and trained by the CIA, to occupied Crimea.
They are spotted, the fiasco is total.
“It’s our war and we must fight
,” replied General Kondratiuk after Washington’s recriminations.
Under the presidency of Donald Trump, and despite his ambition to reconnect with Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian agents increased from 80 to 800 in bases financed by the CIA.
In 2020, during a meeting in The Hague, the CIA, MI6 and Dutch and Ukrainian intelligence sealed an agreement to pool their intelligence on Russia.
The British and American services announced in November 2021 that Russia will invade Ukraine.
The political leaders of the two countries will, moreover, say it publicly.
However, the kyiv government seems not to believe it.
After the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, Washington authorizes its spy agencies to help Ukraine in its commando and covert operations.
The locations of Russian military bases or even lists of names are exchanged.
The CIA and the GUR have, as proof of the strength of the exchange of intelligence, built two new bases.