An unnamed former senior CIA official confirmed the training program to Yahoo News, which was launched after former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted. A "select group" of CIA paramilitary personnel were deployed to the Donbas region in 2015 for a two-fold purpose. Their first mission was to determine how the intelligence agency could best help train Ukrainian soldiers to fight against the Russians and their allies in the separatist region.
The second mission was to "test the Ukrainians' backbone" – and the CIA personnel said that their counterparts in the eastern European country were indeed ready for battle. The former CIA official said: "The question was, 'Are they going to get rolled, or are [they] going to stand up and fight?'"
According to the former intelligence official, the CIA paramilitary members taught their Ukrainian counterparts several key skills for irregular warfare. These include sniper techniques, operating U.S.-supplied equipment such as Javelin anti-tank missiles, evading digital tracking used by the Russians, using covert communications tools and remaining undetected in the battlefield. The Ukrainians were also taught how to draw out Russian forces and their separatist allies from their positions.
"We tried to really focus on operational planning, then really hard military skills like long-range marksmanship. Not just the capacity to do it, but to know how to do it on a battlefield – [so] to really deplete the leadership on the other side," said the former official.
U.S. officials previously denied that the CIA training programs in Ukraine were offensive in nature. "The purpose of the training, and the training that was delivered, was to assist in the collection of intelligence," a second official said back in January. However, the first intelligence official's revelation of the skills taught to Ukrainian military members were exactly aligned with offensive maneuvers. (Related: Ben Swann outlines 3 REASONS why US involvement led to the war in Ukraine.)
CIA aware its presence in Ukraine could escalate tensions
The CIA believed that its presence in Ukraine was a powder keg that could trigger a major conflict with Russia. The first senior official explained: "Everything we did in Ukraine had a chance to be misinterpreted, and escalate the tensions. One miscalculation, one overzealous paramilitary guy, and we've got ourselves a problem."
The agency's paramilitary staffers were clearly instructed to "advise and train, but do not take part in combat yourself." According to the first intelligence official, the Ukrainians already have "very effective special operations" and the CIA personnel were only there to "make them more effective."
A third former national security official, however, mentioned that the Trump administration was walking a fine line over the presence of CIA paramilitary members in Ukraine back in 2017. While they were prohibited from engaging in combat as per instruction, the parameters of their mission – first ordered under the Obama administration – were ambiguous. The third official mentioned that the White House was worried over the repercussions of both American paramilitary agents killing Russians and Russians capturing CIA operatives.
The third official said: "We worried that the authorities might be too far-ranging. How far can you go with existing covert action authorities? If, God forbid, they've shot some Russians, is that a problem? Do you need special authorities for that?"
The CIA paramilitary training program for Ukrainians operated for years, but immediately came to a halt. The Biden administration pulled all CIA personnel out of the country as the threat of a large-scale Russian invasion loomed. Paramilitary personnel responsible for training Ukrainian soldiers in unconventional warfare were among those recalled.
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Watch the video explaining the extent of the CIA's involvement in Ukraine below.
This video is from the Truthchannel channel on Brighteon.com.
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Perhaps the US should shut the f**k up about respecting other countries' sovereignty.
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