The USA built 12 secret bases along the Russian border in Ukraine 8 years ago – NYT

The United States has created 12 secret bases “along the Russian border” in Ukraine. The construction of these facilities began not after Russia’s full-scale invasion, but eight years ago.

This is reported by The New York Times.

At these bases, mostly located in underground bunkers, Russian radio transmissions were intercepted since that time, and now they are also used to control kamikaze drones that Ukraine employs against Russia.

“The CIA and other American intelligence services provide reconnaissance data for targeted missile strikes, track the movements of Russian troops, and help maintain spy networks,” the article says.

“This has turned Ukraine into one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners in the struggle against the Kremlin,” writes the NYT.

Around 2016, the CIA began training the Ukrainian “Squad 2245,” which captured Russian drones and communication equipment for CIA hacking. One of the officers of this unit was Kirill Budanov, the current chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate.

“The CIA also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated inside Russia, throughout Europe, in Cuba, and elsewhere, where Russians have a significant presence,” the article states.

Over the past decade, this collaboration “has turned Ukraine into a center for gathering intelligence, intercepting more Russian messages than the CIA station in Russia,” according to the newspaper.

According to the information provided by the newspaper, such involvement of the Americans became one of the factors underlying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch an invasion of Ukraine.

“According to a senior European official, at the end of 2021, Putin was considering whether to start a full-scale invasion. He met with the head of one of Russia’s main intelligence services, who told him that the CIA, along with British intelligence MI-6, controlled Ukraine and turned it into a springboard for operations against Moscow,” writes the NYT.

According to the article, American intelligence agencies began to increase their presence in Ukraine immediately after the victory of the Maidan in 2014.

Valentin Nalyvaichenko, appointed head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) at that time, called the CIA and British MI-6 on the first day of his work and proposed to them a “three-way partnership.” However, the Americans were cautious and mentioned that they had already been expelled from Ukraine by the CIA.

“During his previous tenure as head of intelligence, Nalyvaichenko began a similar partnership with the CIA, which fell apart when the country turned back to Russia,” the article says about the Yushchenko period.

Nevertheless, the head of the CIA Directorate secretly visited Kyiv, meeting with Nalyvaichenko.

The publication claims that initially, the Americans set a number of conditions for cooperation with Ukraine.

“The rules prohibited intelligence agencies from providing any support to Ukraine that could ‘reasonably be expected’ to have lethal consequences,” the article says.

The second key figure with whom the CIA collaborated, according to the article, is the counterintelligence chief Valeriy Kondratyuk, who headed the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. He had extensive personal connections in the CIA and met with the future head of the American residency in Kyiv, nicknamed Santa Claus, the newspaper writes. Kondratyuk persuaded the Americans to transfer the function of recruiting Russians to Ukrainian intelligence.

Since then, the Main Intelligence Directorate has been completely reformed under the supervision of the Americans, as previously reported by the media.

At the same time, the CIA trained Ukrainian intelligence officers on how to convincingly impersonate false identities and steal secrets in Russia and other countries. Training took place in Europe. Trained agents were sent to 12 advanced bases near the Russian border, where they directed their network of agents in Russia.

Moreover, equipment for collecting intelligence information – from intercepting Russian radio transmissions to tracking Russian spy satellites – began to be installed at the bases since 2016.

At the same time, the United States did not allow Ukrainian intelligence agencies to carry out forceful actions against Russians, including in Crimea. The publication mentions a well-known operation of the Main Intelligence Directorate on the peninsula, after which Kondratyuk was dismissed from his post, and Petro Poroshenko called Joe Biden demanding not to provoke the Russians.

According to the NYT, the initiator of the operation in Crimea was Kondratyuk. The newspaper for the first time named the goal of that mission – to mine the airfield.

“Ukrainian spies discovered that Russian troops were deploying attack helicopters at an airfield in Russia-occupied Crimea, possibly for a surprise attack. General Kondratyuk decided to send a team to Crimea to plant explosives at the airfield so that it could be blown up if Russia launched an attack,” the article says.

But the raid involving the future head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, was defeated, and the White House “was furious.”

After the start of the full-scale war, cooperation with the CIA expanded sharply – the intelligence agency is engaged in targeting for Ukrainian strikes and provides the Ukrainian Armed Forces with other information.

Some Ukrainian intelligence officers now ask their American colleagues whether the CIA will abandon them now that the United States has stopped providing aid to Ukraine.

“This happened before in Afghanistan, and now it will happen in Ukraine,” believes a senior Ukrainian officer. In response to this, a CIA representative told the newspaper that “US commitment will continue.”