12 secret CIA spy bases in Ukraine

Entering the third year of a war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of human lives, the intelligence partnership between Washington and Kiev is a cornerstone of Ukraine's ability to defend itself. The CIA and other American intelligence agencies provide intelligence for targeted missile attacks, track Russian military movements, and help support spy networks. But the partnership is not a creature of war, and Ukraine is not the only beneficiary. The listening post in a Ukrainian forest is part of a CIA-supported network of spy bases built over the past eight years, which includes 12 secret locations along the border with Russia. Before the war, the Ukrainians impressed the Americans by gathering information that helped prove Russia's involvement in the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 jet in 2014. The Ukrainians also helped the Americans in pursuing Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Around 2016, the CIA began training elite Ukrainian commandos - known as Unit 2245 - who intercepted Russian drones and communication equipment so that CIA technicians could reverse engineer them and break Moscow's encryption systems. (One of the officers of this unit was Kyrylo Budanow, currently the general in charge of military intelligence in Ukraine.) The CIA also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated in Russia, throughout Europe, in Cuba, and in other places where Russians are heavily present. According to a high-ranking European official, Putin was considering whether to launch a full-scale invasion by the end of 2021 when he met with the head of one of Russia's main intelligence services. He told him that the CIA, along with the British intelligence service MI6, controlled Ukraine and was turning it into a foothold for operations against Moscow. Excerpt from: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html