"More details: The NYT reports that the partnership between the CIA and Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) began in late February 2014, when former president Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia. This cooperation was proposed by Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, who became the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU).US rules prohibited intelligence agencies from providing Ukraine with any support that could be "reasonably expected" to have lethal consequences. However, the red lines were never precisely clear, creating constant tension in the partnership.In Kyiv, Nalyvaichenko picked a longtime aide, General Valerii Kondratiuk, to head the DIU, and they created a new paramilitary unit that was deployed behind the Russian aggressor’s lines to conduct operations and gather intelligence that the CIA or MI6 could not provide.After an incident that occurred when Budanov's group entered Crimea in 2016, the Americans became very angry and threatened to close the programme down.After that, the then head of the CIA, John Brennan, called General Kondratiuk to re-emphasise the red lines. The general was upset. "It’s our war, and we’ve got to fight," he replied, according to a colleague. According to the NYT, Washington's reaction cost Kondratiuk his post.The NYT notes that under Donald Trump's presidency, the CIA and DIU's cooperation expanded to include more specialised training programmes and the construction of additional secret bases.The relationship was so successful that the CIA wanted to replicate it with other European intelligence services that share common interests in countering Russia.The head of Russia House, the CIA's department that oversees operations against Russia, organised a secret meeting in The Hague. Representatives of the CIA, Britain's MI6, the DIU, the Dutch service and other agencies agreed to pool their intelligence on Russia. The result was a secret coalition against Russia, and the Ukrainians were important members of it.Starting in November 2021, the CIA and MI6 sent messages to their Ukrainian counterparts that Russia was preparing for a full-scale invasion to decapitate the government and install a puppet in Kyiv who would do the Kremlin's bidding. The intelligence listed the names of Ukrainian officials whom the Russians planned to kill or capture, as well as Ukrainians whom the Kremlin hoped to put in power.President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some of his top advisers "appeared unconvinced", even after CIA director William Burns travelled to Kyiv in January 2022 to brief them. As the Russian invasion approached, CIA and MI6 officers made final visits to Kyiv with their Ukrainian counterparts. One of the M16 officers teared up in front of the Ukrainians, fearing that the Russians would kill them, the NYT reports.At this time, "the old handcuffs were off, and the Biden White House authorised spy agencies to provide intelligence support for lethal operations against Russian forces on Ukrainian soil," the article says.The article also quotes a senior Ukrainian official as saying that in at least one case, the CIA shared intelligence with Ukraine which helped foil a plot against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Later, some of the CIA officers were sent to Ukrainian bases. They reviewed lists of potential Russian targets that the Ukrainians were preparing to strike, comparing the information that the Ukrainians had with US intelligence to ensure its accuracy.Recently, however, with the delay in the approval of the US aid package, Ukrainian intelligence officials have been asking their American colleagues whether the US is about to abandon them.Speaking about Burns' visit to Kyiv last week, a CIA spokesperson said: "We have demonstrated a clear commitment to Ukraine over many years, and this visit was another strong signal that the US commitment will continue."
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-maintains-12 ... 50351.html