NYT: CIA Built Vast Anti-Russian Spy Network in Ukraine

By Staff, Agencies

The New York Times revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] has turned Ukraine into one of its major assets in spying on Russia over a decade that has passed since the 2014 Maidan coup, the New York Times revealed in its piece on Sunday.

The US specialists funded and organized a network of secret bases on the territory of the former Soviet state and made Kiev a part of a “secret coalition” against Moscow, the paper said, citing a host of current and former officials in the US, Ukraine and Europe.

Ukraine currently hosts at least 12 secret spy bases located near the Russian border that gather all sorts of information on Russia as well as coordinate drone strikes and a network of agents supposedly operating inside Russia.

The NYT journalists were able to visit one such forward operating base located in an underground bunker. The reporters said that the place was used to eavesdrop on Russian military communications and oversee drone strikes on Russian territory. The base was funded and equipped by the CIA, NYT said, citing a senior Ukrainian intelligence official, General Sergey Dvoretsky.

The US intelligence agency particularly equipped the base with communications equipment and large computer servers, the general told NYT, adding that the bunker was used to hack into Russian, Belarusian and Chinese satellites.

According to the paper, the CIA and other American intelligence agencies also supplied Ukraine with information on Russian troop movements and missile strikes throughout the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev.