The CIA’s paramilitary section is training Ukraine’s special forces about a broad-range of covert operations, including how to launch sabotage, surveillance, espionage and even assassination attacks as Moscow reinforces its western border with 126,000 troops
Image: REUTERS)
American spooks are training Ukrainian special forces in how to launch covert operations against Russian troops if the Kremlin orders an invasion.
The CIA’s paramilitary section is teaching Ukrainians how to launch sabotage, surveillance, espionage and even assassination missions against Russian invaders.
Specialist operators are giving the lessons at a highly-classified base in the south of the United States.
At the same time the Ukrainian elite forces are learning from America’s National Security Agency how to intercept Russian communications.
Sources say it is part of a long-term mutual benefit exchange program between Ukraine and the US which also involves swapping intelligence.
(
Image:
Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERS)
It is believed the United States has boosted the numbers of intelligence officers it now has in Ukraine amid fears of an imminent Russian invasion.
Moscow now has around 126,000 troops gathered on Ukraine’s eastern flank,
as well as 30,000 pro-separatist fighters in the contested Donbas region, in Ukraine.
Around 80,000 Russian and Belarusian troops are gathered in Belarus to the north west, within striking distance of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv.
A source told the Daily Mirror the American -Ukrainian program is designed along the lines of the British World War II Special Operations Executive.
The source said: “This is exactly how the SOE operated , secretly to subvert and launch sabotage missions against an invasion force in Europe.
(
Image:
Kurt Pedersen)
“These highly-trained individuals would undermine and confuse the enemy from the shadows by attacking then disappearing, striking confusion at the heart of the enemy.”
The Mirror also understands Ukraine has provided the US Treasury Department with financial intelligence on Russian efforts to beat economic sanctions.
(
Image:
Agencja Wyborcza.pl via REUTERS)
It is believed to include information on collusion between Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs who both have close ties to the Kremlin and therefore Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine’s army will conduct military drills from Feb. 10 to Feb. 20 in response to Russian exercises, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said this week.
Reznikov said Ukrainian soldiers would start drilling the use of Bayraktar drones and anti-tank Javelin and NLAW missiles provided by countries including the UK.
It is possible Russia’s plans for an invasion have been delayed by mild weather hitting Ukraine, making the ground too soft for its tanks.
Yesterday The Kremlin denied French assertions that President Vladimir Putin had promised Emmanuel Macron that Moscow would not carry out new military initiatives around Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia and France had not yet been able to strike a deal on de-escalating tensions around Ukraine.
But Peskov said troops would return to their bases in Russia after the Belarus drills, without giving a precise date for the withdrawal.
read more
read more
