Secret British plans to ‘defeat entire Russian Black Fleet’ revealed in leaks

Leaked files reviewed by The Grayzone expose the covert war waged by British intelligence against Russia in the Black Sea, outlining Ukrainian “honey trap” plots along with blueprints for blowing up the Kerch Bridge.

Sensitive documents reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that the United Kingdom is the central architect behind Ukrainian military operations targeting Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Among other explosive findings, the files reveal high-ranking British military and intelligence figures drew up detailed plans to “maximize attrition of [Moscow’s] Black Sea Fleet,” plotted to blow up the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to mainland Russia with fertilizer bombs, and even devised blueprints for a series of submersibles which would allow Ukrainian divers to plant mines on Russian ships and infrastructure.

Further machinations include an explicit “honey trap” plan which called for establishing a brothel secretly run by British intelligence in Crimea. There, Russian-speaking female Ukrainian agents would ply “drunken sailors” from the Russian navy for information.

The schemes were assembled by Project Alchemy, a secret British military planning cell whose existence was first exposed by The Grayzone.

Alchemy’s intelligence-aligned director, Dominic Morris, once embedded with British special forces in Afghanistan while serving as a “political officer” for the UK embassy. The first of the relevant files was sent on April 14, 2022 — the same day Ukraine achieved its most spectacular naval success of the war when it sank Russia’s flagship in the region, the Moskva.

That feat was cheered by Western media, with the New York Times heralding the ship’s destruction as a “signal triumph – a display of Ukrainian skill and Russian ineptitude.” As the previously-unpublished files show, admirers of the operation also included Project Alchemy’s Dominic Morris, who saw an opportunity to “defeat the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet” and immediately began crafting plans to sink the rest of Moscow’s warships.

The destruction of the Moskva purportedly both surprised and panicked the Biden administration, as they apparently didn’t believe Ukraine possessed missiles capable of striking such a target and, according to one mainstream report, “hadn’t intended to enable the Ukrainians to attack such a potent symbol of Russian power.” But the attack apparently convinced the White House and Pentagon to double down on their military support for Kiev – and as the documents show, it had the same effect across the pond.

In response to an April 23, 2022 brief authored by a fellow cell member on the importance of Western powers supporting Ukrainian “land” operations, Morris declared “the sinking of Moskva” meant Kiev should focus predominantly on “maritime” operations instead. After complaining that “apart from a little bit of moving tanks and planes around a peaceful Europe,” NATO was “not doing any fighting,” Morris wrote that he saw a chance for the UK to eliminate every Russian vessel in the region without even going to war.

“You could defeat the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet” with “subthreshold options,” he wrote, referring to gray zone tactics which the British military has officially defined as “all activity up to, but not crossing, the legal definition of armed conflict.” Morris specifically proposed “commando raids” as “a fab subthreshold activity that will scare the shit out of” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The attack on the Moskva appeared to serve as a catalyst for Alchemy’s “Black Sea Operations,” which were already being assembled within a few hours of the news breaking. In a document dated the same day as the ship sank, Morris boasted that the “current situation in Ukraine gives the West an ideal opportunity to degrade Russian military capability by destroying as much Russian equipment as possible,” and went on to outline a series of multi-pronged and phased operations targeting Russia across the Black Sea. “Inflicting a high casualty rate must continue,” because “lots of dead soldiers returning to the mainland will have a big impact on public opinion” in Russia, Alchemy’s Morris declared.

Project Alchemy also proposed a joint UK-Ukrainian intelligence operation in which “female agents” were surreptitiously inserted into Russian navy “admin posts.” In phase one of the operation, Morris proposed “setting up a bar and brothel” in Crimea to “gain intelligence from drunken sailors,” and serve as a “honey trap” for military and intelligence officers. “The agents must be Russian speakers and attractive, able to manipulate, playing to the weakness of the average Russian male,” he stressed.

In the second phase, Morris proposed an “unconventional option” for blowing up Kerch Bridge, in which “a hijacked Russian flagged bulk carrier loaded with fertiliser rigged with explosives” would be parked under the Bridge and detonated. Morris “assessed this will be a significant kinetic event that will be able to blast four – six pillars on the bridge, rendering it unusable for a long period of time.” Given Kerch Bridge “was Putin’s crowning glory after taking Crimea,” he suggested its total destruction had the potential to foment a palace coup in the Kremlin.

The Kerch Bridge’s collapse, and the infiltration of spies into Crimea, would lay foundations for the third phase: the “main offensive” of seizing the peninsula. Alchemy’s previously established “honey traps” could establish covert “safe houses and weapon stores” in advance of the mission, Morris suggested. Next, “a direct attack against Sevastopol using a tanker fully laden with fuel into Strilets Bay.” This would be “in essence a fire ship creating further panic” and “sending a strong signal to the Russian Navy [that] nowhere is safe in the region.”

Finally, Morris advocated that Ukraine pursue a strategy of “containment” by seeking to “disrupt” and “capture/reflag the [Black Sea Fleet.]” The idea, the Alchemy chief explained, was “to target the Black Sea Fleet with the aim of destroying as many ships as possible,” as Moscow’s warships were “trapped with little places to hide” there. He urged the “use of civilian vessels retrofitted” with British-supplied weaponry, and proposed “ambushes using hijacked Russian ships to lure in a warship to be attacked by portable anti-ship missiles.”

While no such operation ever materialized, Sevastopol has been a consistent target of Kiev’s drone and missile blitzes throughout the conflict. In fact, the “Black Sea Operations” memo identified the Nakhimov Naval Academy in the Crimean capital as an ideal target for such attacks. The institution has been repeatedly rocked by Ukrainian strikes during this period. An incendiary strike on Kerch Bridge did come to pass in October 2022 – and as The Grayzone revealed at the time, it was almost certainly the outcome of blueprints prepared by Project Alchemy.

In a secret memo one month later, Alchemy leader Dominic Morris stated approvingly that the “attack on Kerch” had “hurt” the Russians. Noting that a relatively high-ranking Russian politician was personally dispatched to oversee the Bridge’s reconstruction, Morris claimed this underlined the attack’s political significance to the Kremlin, and added: “It is not an easy repair, they need to replace road [sic] in each direction (ie the one that wasn’t hit) and bad weather is slowing them.”

On April 16, just two days after the Moskva went under, Alchemy’s plans had already morphed into a “CONOPS” – military jargon which the US Department of Defense defines as a “statement that clearly and concisely expresses what the joint force commander intends to accomplish and how it will be done using available resources.” The document, which is entitled “Building Ukraine [sic] Maritime Raiding Capability” and closely matches a secret British presentation previously exposed by The Grayzone, describes the Moskva’s sinking as “a significant blow to Russian naval capability” that left the rest of the Black Sea Fleet “vulnerable to missile attack.”

According to Alchemy, the sinking of more ships would “force the Russian navy farther away from the Ukraine coast or into port, opening the potential for the Ukrainian Navy to launch littoral, inshore, coastal and riverine raiding operations.” The cell noted “the exploitable sea area” was “relatively small” – “just 160 nautical miles from Odessa to Sevastopol as an example,” which was “well within the range of small assault crafts.”

Ukrainian marines and naval forces were to be equipped and trained by the British to allow for “ambushing… Russian engineer and Spetsnaz reconnaissance teams” and “harassing Russian forces in hit and run operations from the waterways.” These teams would also be charged with “[taking] out coastal radar stations,” and thus “blinding Russian forces.” As these stations were “likely to be well defended,” such attacks would “have to be well planned and hit at lightning speed to ensure success and escape,” Alchemy wrote, insisting that “agent[s] already inserted into Crimea” from mainland Russia would “provide intelligence for the naval commandos.”…..

I’m not quite as much down on the CIA that you are (for good reason). During the Cold War, they did keep us out of some hot wars, particularly in Chile and likely in Central America (and probably in Mexico, at times). We were not going to let the Soviets have our Hemisphere.

But afterwards it depended on who was in power. For the Fascist Party, the CIA became a tool for their (attempted, so far) creation of a One Party State. And around the world, they did more harm than good, particularly in conservative countries in Africa, for example, where they’d fly the Gay Flag, basically telling the locals we are the bad guys, and the locals responded appropriately and now China and Russia are rolling up country after country. As to involvement in the US political process - either we jail those responsible, or it only get worse.

NE State senator John DeCamp wrote a book about the military’s MK Ultra program to ensnare kids from Boys Town to be prostitutes to get extortion tapes on federal lawmakers... because his military buddy who had been the director of the CIA (and did some whistleblowing about the corruption there) told him if he kept investigating the CIA would kill him. He wrote a book instead, to take away any incentive for the CIA to try to shut him up. But it’s interesting that the former head of the CIA straight-up told his friend that the CIA would kill a US citizen simply for exposing their wrong-doing.

It rings true with my experiences and experiences of some colleagues as well.

Somebody at the CIA should be forced to answer the question of how making/acquiring extortion tapes of lawmakers with children helps further “democracy and the USA”. And while they are at it, they should be forced to answer under oath if this project out of Omaha, NE was simply because Jeff Epstein wasn’t in business yet, to do the dirty work for them.

I’d also like to hear them under oath take questions about Dennis Montgomery’s claims of being commissioned by John Brennan and James Clapper to download the databases of the Florida voter registration system and of the Hawaii Department of Health and then undetectably upload corrupted versions in 2012. And to collect extortion material on judges and justices amongst other people (such as Donald Trump and media entities). Specifically I’d like them to be forced to explain exactly what national security or democracy interest was served by giving our intel community the means to undo the power of the voters. I’d also like them to answer under oath and open up all the related records as to what was done to the computer of Sharyl Attkisson - and what national security interest there was in doing that to her. Etc on about a hundred different instances of domestic political meddling.

People with great secret power can do good. But like Gandalf, we need to realize that even if we intend to do good with the ring of power, it would eventually own us and do terrible things through us. That is the power of the ring of power. It makes Gollum out of Smeagol, and of Borimir, and Saruman, and even Aragorn. And Washington, DC is Mordor, with the eye of Sauron constantly searching for who he can ensnare.

Actually, in that analogy, the CIA may very well be Sauron, or maybe the head of the beast of Revelation symbolizing corrupt government. Or maybe they’re just the Oruk-hai. In any case, lawless vermin. The extremely corrupted version of an agency that long ago did some good in the world.

The older folks have had enough. They bitch about how their streets aren't recognizable anymore, how they don't feel safe anymore and that the newcomers are mostly devoid of manners and civilized behavior. Proper manners are a big, big thing to "Old School" Brits. For instance, a pack of African savages recently moved into the apartment below my mother-in-law's place. They play loud jungle music day and night and cop a menacing vibe when she's politely asked them to turn it down. She's complained to the Council, but for obvious reasons, nothings been done about it.

In better days I guarantee that a pack of yobs would have paid the savages a "visit" and that would have been the end of it.

Besides some of the footballers, young folks are too distracted staring into their smart phones to give a crap. From my perch, Britain and France are a tossup as far as who'll first be joining the Caliphate goes.

Enoch Powell was right.

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