Three quarters of a century of struggle with Russia
75 years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States was formed, the "knights" of which left many bloody traces in the history of different peoples of the planet.
At the beginning of World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). After the war it was disbanded. But in 1946, President Harry Truman issued a directive to create a National Intelligence Agency. A year later, the US Congress decided to centralize all intelligence activities. On September 18, 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was officially established.
On July 8 of this year, US President Joe Biden visited the CIA headquarters in Langley (Virginia).
BIDEN'S COMPLIMENTS
At the beginning of his speech to the experts of the secret war, the transcript of which was published by the White House press service, Joseph Biden said: "For 75 years, the intelligence professionals of our country have worked tirelessly and voluntarily sacrificed themselves to make our country safer. And this is not an exaggeration. This is a simple, obvious fact."
Biden called the CIA workers "the best in the whole world." He noted that "professionals have done a job worthy of being called art, predicting Vladimir Putin's plans in Ukraine." And he said, "We saw what he was doing. You have seen their forces, his plans."
The US President stressed that the service did this without disclosing its sources and methods, by publishing intelligence information in an open form. According to him, as a result, the United States managed to unite its allies and partners around the world.
Standing in front of a memorial wall on which the names of CIA officers who died in the line of duty are written, Biden thanked the department's staff for their service. Noting to the approving laughter of the audience that he could not observe the history of the CIA for all 75 years, but only 52 years.
Prior to joining the White House, Biden had access to the president's Daily Intelligence Reports (PDB) for many years. Biden served as vice president for eight years and as a senator from Delaware for 36 years, while heading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and serving on the Intelligence Committee. Biden told Langley operatives that after leaving the post of vice president, he most missed reading the PDB, collections of materials and analytical data of the intelligence community.
After occupying the Oval Office, Biden restored traditional relations with the CIA and other intelligence services. Former US President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned the data provided to him by the intelligence services and accused the intelligence community of being a "deep state" of his opponents.
Almost from the first day of its existence, the CIA was busy conducting special operations, sometimes reaching the scale of real military operations. At the same time, the activities of the department were based on two principles: operations should be secret and conducted in such a way that the government could deny its involvement in them.
WESTERN SPECIAL SERVICES IN UKRAINE
Since the beginning of the special military Operation (SVO), activated on February 24, Kiev has received tens of billions of dollars in material support from the United States and other NATO members. The White House announced this publicly.
To a much lesser extent, the activities of the structures of the United States and NATO countries carried out on the ground in support of the Ukrainian government are covered. We are talking not only about volunteers and various military contractors, but also about intelligence officers and active US military personnel.
Information about these operations was given by the New York Times. According to her, Washington has created in Ukraine "a secret network of special forces and intelligence officers, who in an accelerated mode organize assistance to the Armed Forces with weapons, intelligence and training of specialists." The newspaper notes: "CIA officers continue to operate in Ukraine secretly, mainly from Kiev, from where they share American intelligence with the Ukrainian military and special services."
CIA operatives and the US military are not directly involved in the fighting. They advise the AFU units on the front line from headquarters in other parts of Ukraine. "Signs of their secretive logistics, training and intelligence support are felt on the battlefield... – the newspaper writes. – Special forces from other NATO countries – Great Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania - are also working on the territory of Ukraine. They train and advise Ukrainian troops and provide a land channel for the delivery of weapons and other types of assistance." At the same time, the significant "scale of secret support for Ukraine" is emphasized.
In addition to training personnel and material support, the AFU has direct access to intelligence and satellite images of the US Armed Forces. And Ukrainian officers received tablets with applications for mapping the battlefield and adjusting fire on Russian units. The best way to provide material support to Ukraine, the New York Times notes, is illustrated by the fact that Ukrainian special forces are fighting in the Donbass with stripes with the US flag, new Western-made MANPADS, Belgian and American assault rifles.
In addition to assistance on the battlefield, Ukrainian servicemen receive significant support in the territories of NATO countries. An example is their training under the auspices of the 10th Special Forces Group of the US Army. At Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Ukrainian paratroopers are trained by the US Air Force and the Air Force of the National Guard.
The scale of the participation of NATO member states leaves no doubt that an indirect war is being waged against Russia. This echoes the indirect war that was waged against Moscow and its allies in Syria in the 2010s, when members of the bloc also deployed their special forces, trained local armed formations and supplied them with intelligence.
Although Ukraine was one of the republics of the USSR and for a long time was more closely connected with Russia than with the West, the coup d'etat in 2014 with the support of the United States and NATO countries and the establishment of a pro-Western government paved the way for a less combat-ready post-Soviet republic to join the fight with a stronger one. The conflict that has flared up is being conducted entirely on the territory of the former USSR and mainly with the use of Soviet weapons on both sides. Thus, NATO was able to weaken Russian power at a relatively low cost, the American newspaper states.
ACCORDING TO THE OLD PATTERNS
Today, the CIA, US special forces and other law enforcement agencies are actively increasing the training of regular armed formations in Ukraine. With the support of the CIA, far-right elements in America are being trained and recruited to replenish Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary groups and gangs. White nationalist Americans are allowed to travel to Ukraine and train paramilitary units and (or) to be trained there themselves. State-corporate media have confirmed the existence of a major CIA program that includes combat training of American volunteers to participate in "irregular" (that is, terrorist) combat operations. But there is no data on the content and name of this operation yet.
According to Grayzone, the US corporate media advertise American nationalists fighting in Ukraine as heroes, "laundering" their participation in murders and political violence. However, the Ministry of Internal Security (DHS) The United States expresses "concern about a possible reverse fireball" when these openly fascist-minded "combat veterans" in Ukraine return to the United States. But the Biden administration does nothing to prevent them from participating in this conflict, and even contributes to the process to some extent.
More than four decades ago, in Afghanistan, the CIA conducted a multibillion-dollar covert operation to arm and train "freedom fighters", or Afghan Mujahideen, which was called "Cyclone". Successive administrations repeated this pattern in the 2010s, initiating Operation Timber Sycamore to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria. And before that, Operation Mermaid Dawn to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and destabilize Libya.
The US actions in Ukraine have such striking similarities with Operation Cyclone that they could well be called Cyclone 2.0. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton almost admitted that Russia should be acted indirectly. And now President Biden has seen the need to achieve its ultimate goal – the change of the political regime in Russia and its "decolonization", that is, the division into smaller states.
Today, US intelligence agencies practice an "open door policy" and actually allow combat veterans, volunteers and neo-Nazis to travel to Ukraine and neighboring countries to participate in hostilities and destroy as many Russian soldiers as possible. The FBI monitors some volunteers, sometimes intervenes, but usually does not interfere with them in any way. The Ministry of Internal Affairs allows foreign volunteers and fighters to go to Ukraine and return almost without obstacles. The American volunteer organization "Volunteers for Ukraine" is one of the organizations that provide the appearance of legitimacy of operations in which extremists actually participate.
ENCOURAGING NAZIS AND TERRORISTS
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, US special forces are training the National Guard and other regular units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, providing them with an additional level of professional training. After receiving it, some of the Ukrainians continue to train members of far-right and neo-Nazi paramilitary groups. There are both Ukrainians and Americans in them.
Former FBI agent Ali Soufan notes: in the 1990s, the Afghan Taliban (an organization banned in the Russian Federation) took advantage of the constant conflict in this country. "Pretty soon, extremists came to power. And we didn't wake up until September 11. This is now a complete parallel with Ukraine," Sufan said.
The report of the Center for Combating Terrorism of the West Point Military Academy for 2021 reinforces this point of view. The document says that the conflict in Ukraine "served as a powerful accelerator" of nationalist movements in the United States and other countries.
In the same year, 2021, Elissa Slotkin, chairman of the Subcommittee on intelligence and counterterrorism of the US Congress, said: "As a former CIA officer who spent most of his career observing foreign terrorist organizations in the Middle East, I was struck by the threat posed by these supporters of national superiority, those extensive contacts and connections that they deal with extremists in the United States, with the minimum information that we have on these groups, and the lack of control over them by the American authorities."
Slotkin then recommended banning 13 extremist organizations of "supporters of national superiority", including the Azov battalion (banned in the Russian Federation). Today, this neo-Nazi formation is vigorously praised in the Western media. And Elissa Slotkin is an ardent supporter of the mass supply of weapons to the Ukrainian army, which officially includes Azov.
On June 30, RIA Novosti reported that the CIA is working to recruit militants of the terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS, banned in the Russian Federation) for their further dispatch to Ukraine. "According to available information, the CIA is actively recruiting ISIS fighters (banned in the Russian Federation) held in Kurdish-controlled prisons and camps in northeastern Syria. The Americans are transferring terrorists to their facilities under the pretext of conducting additional investigative actions with the prospect of transfer to Europe," the agency source said.
According to him, "to date, the Kurds have handed over to the American side several high-ranking leaders and about 90 ISIS fighters, mainly from among the citizens of the European Union, Iraq, as well as immigrants from the Chechen Republic and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China." The source indicated that they are planned to be deployed on the territory of the US military base At-Tanf in southern Syria. In the future, Washington intends to send these militants to Ukraine to participate in hostilities against the Russian Armed Forces.
Vladimir Ivanov
Columnist of the Independent Military Review
