Report: CIA Financed 12 Ukrainian Spy Centers Targeting Russia

The New York Times revealed Sunday that the U.S. established and financed no less than a dozen “spy centers” in Ukraine — long before the Russian invasion in February of 2022.

Besides being part of Kyiv’s wartime decisions, the outlet charged that Washington established the program a full decade ago. Its implementation covered three different administrations and survived changes in political parties controlling the White House and Congress.

The CIA program essentially equipped Ukraine to be the eyes and ears of the U.S. trained on its much larger neighbor. This meant the former Soviet state became “Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.”

The intelligence nerve centers began operations eight years ago, and this followed CIA training and equipping of Ukrainian agents.

Among their many functions are the sweeping up of Russian military communications. They are further used to monitor Moscow’s spy satellites and coordinate drone and missile attacks in Russian territory.

Ivan Bakanov, the former chief of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence outfit SBU, said the CIA single-handedly made resistance to the Russian invasion possible.

He noted that without the agency’s funding, equipping and training of his countrymen, “There would have been no way for us to resist the Russians or to beat them.” 

The Times further revealed that Biden’s CIA Director, William Burns, last Thursday made his tenth secret trip to Kyiv since the Russian invasion of Feb. 2022.

The outlet confirmed that Ukrainian intelligence collected data for American agents attempting to prove Russian involvement in the 2014 downing of a Malaysia Airlines aircraft. They also assisted in the investigation into so-called Russian “election interference” in 2016.

It was roughly that time when the CIA trained an elite Ukrainian special forces group called Unit 2245. 

It was tasked with capturing Russian drones and communications technology so Americans could reverse engineer what they gathered. The goal was to break the Kremlin’s encryption codes.

The Times said the intimate relationship between U.S. and Ukrainian intelligence agencies was hidden from public view for at least a decade. The outlet stated that Republican opposition to massive open-ended funding of Ukraine could force these operations to downsize.