I apologize on not writing in regards to the NY Instances article by Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz, The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin, prior to now however my schedule didn’t give me the time I wanted to do the topic justice. I used to be inundated with requests for a remark by a number of media shops and did my greatest to accommodate these in radio and TV interviews.
The important thing factor you should perceive is that this text is a deliberate piece of misinformation that’s meant to form public and policymaking opinion in the US. The next opening to the article, like all propaganda, is a combination of reality and fantasy.
the intelligence partnership between Washington and Kyiv is a linchpin of Ukraine’s capability to defend itself. The C.I.A. and different American intelligence businesses present intelligence for focused missile strikes, observe Russian troop actions and assist help spy networks.
However the partnership isn’t any wartime creation, neither is Ukraine the one beneficiary.
It took root a decade in the past, coming collectively in matches and begins below three very totally different U.S. presidents, pushed ahead by key people who typically took daring dangers. It has reworked Ukraine, whose intelligence businesses had been lengthy seen as completely compromised by Russia, into one in every of Washington’s most necessary intelligence companions towards the Kremlin at the moment.
Sure, it’s true that U.S. intelligence, together with NATO, provided Ukraine with intelligence used to hold out missile strikes on Russian positions. Admitting this within the pages of the NY Instances is reckless and harmful. I’m fairly positive the Russians already knew this however placing this on the document with U.S. intelligence sources is a casus belli for Russia. Are you able to think about the response if Russian intelligence confirmed they supplied intel to a bunch or nation that attacked the U.S.? Do you suppose Washington would ignore that and never search retribution? In fact not.
However the article begins with the large lie by claiming that the CIA relationship with Ukraine began in February 2022 after which piles on with these two whoppers:
Earlier than the struggle, the Ukrainians proved themselves to the Individuals by gathering intercepts that helped show Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of a industrial jetliner, Malaysia Airways Flight 17. The Ukrainians additionally helped the Individuals go after the Russian operatives who meddled within the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Maidan and the following occasions in February and March 2014 concerned what I imagine was a joint U.S./U.Ok. intelligence operation to take away Ukraine’s President Yanukovich and set up a pro-Western authorities that will be used to assault Russia. The actual fact of the matter is that the CIA has been coping with Ukrainian opponents of Russia since no less than 1947.
The propaganda goal of the article is revealed by the choice of the reporters to repeat the specious claims that Russia shot down Malaysia Airways flight 17 and that Russia “meddled” within the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. We now have had a slew of revelations over the past two months, principally from Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger, displaying that it was the Clinton marketing campaign with the assistance of the CIA and the FBI who meddled within the 2016 Presidential marketing campaign in a failed effort to defeat Donald Trump. Entous and Schwirtz insert the bogus declare that Ukraine fingered the Russian officer answerable for “election interference.”
In a single joint operation, a HUR staff duped an officer from Russia’s army intelligence service into offering info that allowed the C.I.A. to attach Russia’s authorities to the so-called Fancy Bear hacking group, which had been linked to election interference efforts in numerous international locations.
No. Fancy Bear was a CIA creation that used Vault 7 instruments to create a pretend cyber path that implicated Russian intelligence. I mentioned the CIA’s function on this operation 4 years in the past in my piece, DID JOHN BRENNAN’S CIA CREATE GUCCIFER 2.0 AND DCLEAKS? Right here is the related portion of that piece:
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA. As a part of that reorganization he created a brand new directorate–DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to “manipulate digital footprints.” In different phrases, this was the Directorate that did the work of making Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. Certainly one of their specialties, creating Digital Mud.
We additionally know, due to Wikileaks, that the CIA was utilizing software program particularly designed to masks CIA exercise and make it seem prefer it was accomplished by a international entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents:
Vault 7 is a sequence of paperwork that WikiLeaks started to publish on 7 March 2017, that element actions and capabilities of the US’ Central Intelligence Company to carry out digital surveillance and cyber warfare. The recordsdata, dated from 2013–2016, embrace particulars on the company’s software program capabilities, comparable to the flexibility to compromise vehicles, good TVs,[1] internet browsers (together with Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software program ASA),[2][3][4] and the working methods of most smartphones (together with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android), in addition to different working methods comparable to Microsoft Home windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE. Hackernews explains the purpose and function of MARBLE:
Dubbed “Marble,” the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA’s Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus corporations from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking assaults to the CIA,” says the whistleblowing website.
“…for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion,” WikiLeaks explains.
So guess what gullible techies “discovered” in mid-June 2016? The meta knowledge within the Guccifer 2.0 communications had “Russian fingerprints.”
The objective of the Entous/Schwirtz article is straightforward — painting the CIA as an ideal group that did magnificent work in Ukraine however was not capable of full the mission of destroying Russia as a result of the Republican Congress failed to offer funding and the Ukrainian intelligence service was uncontrollable.
Entous and Schwirtz current an emotional account of CIA and UK spies making an attempt to warn Ukrainian officers that Russia was going to invade. Hell, the Brits even cried. However, regardless of Ukrainian recalcitrance, the CIA wouldn’t abandon Ukraine:
President Zelensky and a few of his high advisers appeared unconvinced, even after Mr. Burns, the C.I.A. director, rushed to Kyiv in January 2022 to temporary them.
Because the Russian invasion neared, C.I.A. and MI6 officers made ultimate visits in Kyiv with their Ukrainian friends. One of many MI6 officers teared up in entrance of the Ukrainians, out of concern that the Russians would kill them.
At Mr. Burns’s urging, a small group of C.I.A. officers had been exempted from the broader U.S. evacuation and had been relocated to a lodge advanced in western Ukraine. They didn’t wish to desert their companions.
We’re then handled to a litany of all of the unbelievable secrets and techniques the CIA handed to Ukraine about Russia’s plans to homicide the federal government and army leaders in Kiev. However we’re additionally advised that the CIA skilled Ukie intel squads are one thing of a Rogue Elephant.
On the time, the long run head of Ukraine’s army intelligence company, Common Budanov, was a rising star in Unit 2245. He was identified for daring operations behind enemy strains and had deep ties to the C.I.A. The company had skilled him and likewise taken the extraordinary step of sending him for rehabilitation to Walter Reed Nationwide Navy Medical Middle in Maryland after he was shot in the fitting arm throughout combating within the Donbas.
Disguised in Russian uniforms, then-Lt. Col. Budanov led commandos throughout a slender gulf in inflatable speedboats, touchdown at evening in Crimea.
However an elite Russian commando unit was ready for them. The Ukrainians fought again, killing a number of Russian fighters, together with the son of a normal, earlier than retreating to the shoreline, plunging into the ocean and swimming for hours to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
It was a catastrophe. In a public deal with, President Putin accused the Ukrainians of plotting a terrorist assault and promised to avenge the deaths of the Russian fighters.
“There is no doubt that we will not let these things pass,” he mentioned.
In Washington, the Obama White Home was furious. Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the vice chairman and a champion of help to Ukraine, referred to as Ukraine’s president to angrily complain.
Received it? Budanov is a reckless, uncontrolled spy. Message delivered. Entous and Schwirtz then return to the narrative of how nice a job the CIA did in defending Ukraine from the Russians. For instance, they recount how the CIA knowledgeable Zelensky that Ukraine had stopped the Russian invasion chilly on the finish of March 2022:
When the Russian assault on Kyiv had stalled, the C.I.A. station chief rejoiced and advised his Ukrainian counterparts that they had been “punching the Russians in the face,” in response to a Ukrainian officer who was within the room.
This isn’t true. It’s a lie. Not a phrase is written in regards to the negotiations that had been underway in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine that had reached an settlement in precept till the U.S. and the U.Ok. intervened and ordered the Ukrainians to stroll away. Can’t have that on this narrative. Nope. Received to seek out another person accountable for the unfolding debacle. And Entous and Schwirtz oblige with this off-hand paragraph on the finish of their piece:
The query that some Ukrainian intelligence officers are actually asking their American counterparts — as Republicans within the Home weigh whether or not to chop off billions of {dollars} in support — is whether or not the C.I.A. will abandon them. “It happened in Afghanistan before and now it’s going to happen in Ukraine,” a senior Ukrainian officer mentioned.
The reply to that query is left hanging. Entous and Schwirtz did their job — they polished up the CIA turd and laid the muse of blame for the looming defeat by the hands of the Republican Congress and an out-of-control Ukrainian intel chief, Budanov. When you grasp this you may perceive why Kiril Budanov has been on the document within the press this week denying the U.S. declare that Putin killed Russian-dissident Nalvani and that Russia is utilizing Iranian and North Korean missiles. Seems like Budanov understands he can now not rely on the CIA to have his again.
