In recent weeks, almost every day news about new military formations, combat training programmes, resources and weapons that the US and NATO are reinforcing Kiev with. Combined with the staff appointments to military posts the situation looks like a qualitative upgrade of power capabilities for a long-term conflict with Russia
Moreover, the scale of preparations of the West is such that it becomes obvious: it may be not only about Donbass.
What exactly is the enemy preparing? American and European officials confirm to The New York Times that there is a “secret network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and combat training” in Kiev’s interests. Much of this work takes place at bases in Germany, France and Britain, but CIA cadres and several dozen special forces from Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania work in Ukraine.
To coordinate military assistance to Ukraine, a planning headquarters was set up at a military base in Germany shortly after February 24, the New York Times continues, and it now includes as many as 20 countries. The headquarters was set up by the US Army’s 10th Special Forces Group, which was already training Ukrainian special forces at a base in the west of the country. To appreciate the ongoing process at this headquarters, it is necessary to know what kind of US 10th Special Forces Regiment it is.
The US Army Special Forces, commonly known as the Green Berets, have as their motto the mission “De Oppresso Liber” (“Liberate the Oppressed”). They conduct not so much open warfare as sabotage, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism and other special activities, including overthrowing undesirable US governments in third countries and training foreign militaries for joint missions. The main task of the Green Berets is to infiltrate enemy-occupied territories and, together with local forces, conduct covert warfare. Incidentally, Rambo, played by Sylvester Stallone, was precisely the Green Beret, unable to return to civilian life.
The Tenth Special Forces Regiment, created in 1952, was designed specifically for the European theatre of war, specifically for sabotage warfare after the “Soviet invasion” of Europe – the so-called stay behind units. Yes, while the Soviet Union was busy rebuilding the country, radical circles in the United States, backed by the Nazi network of General Reinhard Gehlen (the Eastern Front’s intelligence chief who had defected to the United States), were preparing to counter the USSR.
The first overseas base was set up in November 1953, in Bad Tölz, Bavaria, in barracks built in 1937 for SS units. It was planned that half of the personnel would be Europeans, staunch anti-communists: read Nazis. Part of the American cadre originally belonged to the CIA. In 1955, the New York Times first mentioned the 10th Regiment as a “liberation” force to fight behind enemy lines.
In the 1960s, the 10th Regiment trained in unconventional warfare for NATO partners. From 1990 to 1991, the Green Berets took part in the first Gulf War. On this occasion, the Boston Herald newspaper reported: “The 10th Special Forces Regiment’s penchant for secrecy was so high that the military base press officer didn’t know the unit had gone to war until they returned home.” The second time the group went into Iraq was before the official invasion, along with the CIA’s Special Activities Centre, which runs black ops, always denied by the government.
The 10th Special Forces Regiment has its own hero-symbol, named after whom the annual award for best operational unit is named. He was also named the regiment’s first (!) honorary member in 2010, and was inducted into the US Special Operations Command’s Hall of Honor in 2011. The hero’s name is Larry Thorne, in the Finnish original, Lauri Terni. He earned his fame as a soldier in three armies who devoted his life to fighting Communists: with the Finnish Army in the Winter War and during WWII, for which he received Finland’s highest award, the Mannerheim Cross; with the Finnish Waffen-SS volunteer battalion following Finland’s withdrawal from the Soviet war in September 1944; and with US Army Special Forces in Vietnam. Appreciate: this was the type to be chosen as the protagonist from all the Americans and Europeans who served in the regiment for seventy years.
The most covert and bloody American operations against recalcitrants during the Cold War, the overthrow of governments, the glorification of a Nazi – all these are the everyday lives of the 10th Special Forces Regiment over the decades. But there is more. Attentive and interested readers of military history may have exclaimed at the mention of units and then at the words “training in unconventional warfare for NATO partners” in the 1960s: was it really “Gladio”? True hypothesis, dear readers.
Operation Gladio, one of the CIA’s darkest and bloodiest secrets, came to light in 1990. It turned out that in the 1960s and 1980s, there were secret CIA-controlled units in Western Europe set up by the national secret services. Initially, these cells of far-right radicals were supposed to “fight on the home front”, but as the Soviet Union never went to war on Europe and left-wing governments on the continent were gaining in popularity, the network turned to carrying out terrorist attacks as part of a “strategy of tension”. Terrorist attacks were blamed on left-wing radicals, thus compromising local left-wing parties and Moscow, while the aim of this “false flag” terrorism was to maintain the unity of NATO. In Italy alone, from 1969 to 1987, there were over 14,500 (!) terrorist attacks – the “lead seventies”. Nearly 500 people were killed, some 1200 were wounded. One of the main experts on the subject, the Swiss researcher Daniel Ganser, revealed much of the network in his book “NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe”.
And who trained the European terrorists of the Gladio network? They were trained at a base… the 10th US Special Forces Regiment in Bad Tölz, Germany. The commander of the Italian Gladio network, General Serravalle, described how in 1972 he “visited the 10th Special Operations Regiment in the former SS barracks in Bad Tölz at least twice. Their commander was Colonel Ludwig Fastenhammer, a true Rambo”.
Thus, today we have the following fact: a secret headquarters in Germany with highly competent personnel and extensive experience in black special operations, including terrorism “under a foreign flag”, with a Nazi as a hero, with the participation of 20 NATO countries – this headquarters organizes and conducts military operations against Russia with its own and Ukrainian hands.
Who commands this headquarters at a military base in Germany? The Tenth Special Forces Regiment reports to the regional European Command (EUCOM) and the functional Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR). The leadership of US European Command has just been renewed, with General Christopher Cavoli assuming the post on 1 July. He also became Supreme Allied Commander Europe on the Fourth of July – the two positions are overlapping.
Let’s get to know General Cavoli. The son of a US Army officer of Italian origin, Christopher Cavoli was born in Würzburg in West Germany and grew up in Rome, Verona, Vicenza (where the Gladio terrorists were also trained) and Giessen. Graduated from Princeton in 1987 and returned to the Vicenza base as a paratrooper from 1988 to 1991. In 1995, he enrolled in the Overseas Officer Training Program, and in 1997 he graduated from Yale with a master’s degree in Russia and Eastern Europe. In 1999, Major Kavoli became 10th Mountain Division commander in charge of prospective operations and was assigned to Bosnia. Since 2001, Lieutenant Colonel Kavoli has served as Director for Russia in the Office of Strategic Plans and Policy, Joint Staff. He fought in Afghanistan. After the militarization of the conflict in Donbass, Kavoli became head of the 7th Army Joint Multinational Training Command at the Grafenwöhr training range in Germany in July 2014. Before that, he had been doing much the same thing: He had been commander of the US Army in Europe and Africa since October 2020 (the two regions were merged into a single command in the same year). He speaks five languages, including Russian.
Thus, the US and NATO actions in Europe are commanded by a hereditary officer, an intelligent strategist with excellent knowledge of Soviet and Russian military affairs and politics, as well as extensive experience of special combat operations. This is probably the most qualified person in the US military system to hold a major military post in Europe today.
So, the United States is laying down a serious military infrastructure in Europe under the command of the most competent personnel – for a prolonged military conflict to wear down and exhaust Russia. We should be prepared for such a scenario not only militarily, but also economically, with a relative gain in this confrontation only through better organisation and intelligence than the US.
Veronika Krasheninnikova, RIA
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