On February 25, 2024, the New York Times (NYT) published a long investigative article about the US and British spy war in Ukraine. The elaborate article of nearly 8,000 words was written by two famous journalists who received Pulitzer Prizes, Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz. This is a rare and special move, in the context of the conflict, which is showing unfavorable developments for Ukraine. The authors conducted more than 200 interviews with current and former officials in Ukraine, the United States and Europe, most anonymously due to the sensitive nature of the information.
We would like to introduce the summary content of this investigative article:
NYT’s story begins with a secret underground bunker built to replace a command center destroyed in the early months of the conflict with Russia. The bunker, funded and partly equipped by the CIA, is located in a Ukrainian military base in the woods, where above ground was destroyed by a barrage of Russian missiles. Here, Ukrainian intelligence is monitoring Russian spy satellites, drones and eavesdropping on conversations between Russian commanders.
NYT said that “the intelligence partnership between Washington and Kiev is key to Ukraine’s self-defense ability. The CIA and other US agencies provide intelligence for targeted missile attacks, track Russian military movements, and help support espionage networks.”
The CIA was allowed to build 12 secret bases across Ukraine. Illustration photo: Anadolu
There are 12 such secret sites that have been built over the past eight years along the border with Russia thanks to the support of the CIA. Since 2016, the authors say, “the CIA began training an elite Ukrainian force — known as Unit 2245 — that specializes in capturing Russian drones and communications equipment for use by technicians.” can reverse engineer and crack Moscow’s encryption systems.” General Kyrylo Budanov, currently head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, was a member of 2245. The CIA also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies to operate inside Russia, across Europe, in Cuba and elsewhere. other.
NYT also revealed that when the Americans evacuated diplomatic staff during the conflict in 2022, the CIA kept the officers in a remote location in Western Ukraine and continued to transfer information to Ukraine. vital intelligence, including where Russia is planning an attack and what weapons systems it will use.
The “affinity” of Western intelligence and Ukraine, as the article’s authors describe, was not the CIA’s original plan, because “US officials were concerned that the Ukrainians were unreliable and nervous.” about provoking the Kremlin.” But a group of Ukrainian intelligence officials diligently persuaded the CIA. In 2015, General Valeriy Kondratiuk, then head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, during a meeting with Deputy Director director of the CIA, gave the CIA a stack of top-secret files on the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet, including detailed information on Russia’s latest nuclear submarine designs. The CIA regularly left his office with backpacks full of documents.
NYT describes that the “triangular” relationship of Ukrainian intelligence with the CIA and the British intelligence agency MI6 began with the Director of the Ukrainian security agency, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, calling the head of the CIA team and the head of MI6 in Kiev in half. night of February 24, 2014, to “ask for help rebuilding the agency from scratch and propose a trilateral partnership.”
But at that time, the CIA was quite hesitant because it did not know how long the pro-Western government would last because the agency had seen its relationship with Ukrainian intelligence disintegrate before. The Americans were also deeply concerned about provoking Moscow, so they set the rules. These regulations prohibit intelligence agencies from providing any assistance to Ukraine that could “cause deadly consequences.” A US official was quoted in the article, saying that although the CIA “cannot provide fish to Ukrainians, it can teach them to fish, and provide bait.” On the Ukrainian side, General Kondratiuk also created Department 5, a paramilitary agency with young officers with no connection to Russia to collect intelligence information that the CIA and MI6 did not provide them, all However, with the skills and training of Western partners.