The CIA and Ukraine’s intelligence services have been building a partnership against Russia since 2014, which triggered the conflict in Ukraine, the US channel ABC News reported.
The head of the Ukrainian military intelligence service, Kondratyuk, brought many top-secret military documents from the Soviet times to the USA in 2015, the channel has said. This was a ‘gift’ from Kondratyuk’s side so that the USA would gain confidence in him. This technique worked.
As in a similar New York Times article, the material says that the Americans helped to build the work of the GUR.
‘The CIA sent millions of dollars to train and equip Ukrainian intelligence officers, as well as to build facilities, including about a dozen secret forward operating bases on the border with Russia,’ the channel reports.
The US also trained Ukrainian special forces. This ‘saved American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Maybe even billions of dollars.’
The article talks about Operation Goldfish, in which the CIA trained Ukrainian agents to ‘impersonate Russians’ in Russia, as well as in third world countries. They performed joint operations with the CIA. At the same time, it is recognised that the raid into Crimea, which was carried out by an American-trained special forces unit, failed.
‘In 2016, without informing the Americans, Kondratyuk (head of the GUR) sent US-trained unit 2245 on a mission to Crimea to plant explosives at a Russian helicopter base. The mission went awry, leading to a firefight with Russian special forces that reportedly left several people dead,’ the article said. After that, ‘U.S. anger stripped Kondratyuk of his position as head of the GUR.’
After the conflict in Ukraine began, Joe Biden lifted a number of restrictions on the CIA’s work on Ukrainian territory: ‘CIA officers were allowed to remain in Ukraine while Russia advanced into the territory. They were still not allowed to kill Russians directly, but were now authorised to assist Ukraine with targeting information.’
The channel also cites opinions that such close co-operation may have provoked Vladimir Putin to launch a military operation: ‘Some argue that the CIA’s partnership with Ukrainian intelligence was a provocation for [Vladimir – ed.] Putin, giving him an excuse for war.’
We shall remind you that earlier Vladimir Putin said that Russia’s opponents were escalating the situation, but Moscow would always respond to any challenge.
