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To: MAGAthon

DS in the mix, of course:

14 Jan 2022: Yahoo: CIA-trained Ukrainian paramilitaries may take central role if Russia invades
by Zach Dorfman, National Security Correspondent
(Zach Dorfman is a former Senior Staff Writer at the Aspen Institute’s Cyber and Technology program and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs)
The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.
The CIA-trained forces could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion...

While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.
By 2015, as part of this expanded anti-Russia effort, CIA Ground Branch paramilitaries also started traveling to the front in eastern Ukraine to advise their counterparts there, according to a half-dozen former officials...

One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. “The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.”...

“If the Russians invade, those [graduates of the CIA programs] are going to be your militia, your insurgent leaders,” said the former senior intelligence official. “We’ve been training these guys now for eight years. They’re really good fighters. That’s where the agency’s program could have a serious impact.”...
“It has helped “turn the tide,” said the first former CIA official, who said he or she was briefed that “gains were being made on the battlefield” as a “direct result” of the program...

If the Russians launch a new invasion, “there’s going to be people who make their life miserable,” said the former senior intelligence official. The CIA-trained paramilitaries “will organize the resistance” using the specialized training they’ve received.
“All that stuff that happened to us in Afghanistan,” said the former senior intelligence official, “they can expect to see that in spades with these guys.”
https://news.yahoo.com/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html

25 Feb: Yahoo: How the U.S. helped Ukraine prepare for a Russian invasion
by Zach Dorfman and Jana Winter
The support has included billions of dollars in military aid; enhanced intelligence sharing between the CIA, the National Security Agency and Ukrainian spy agencies; anti-corruption assistance; and enhanced cybersecurity coordination.

As Yahoo News reported in January, the CIA has also conducted paramilitary training for Ukrainian special operations forces at a facility in the Southern U.S. as part of a secret program that began in 2015, and has sent agency paramilitaries to the front in eastern Ukraine to advise their counterparts there...

In addition to cybersecurity help, the U.S. has provided advanced military training to elite Ukrainian military and special operations units. A small contingent of U.S. special operations and other military personnel were based in Ukraine to train their counterparts there, though they were were recently evacuated by the Pentagon because of the looming threat of a Russian invasion.

The CIA has also provided secret training to Ukrainian security officials. In 2015, the agency began sending a small cohort of paramilitary officers to the eastern front to help advise Ukrainian forces there, former U.S. intelligence officials told Yahoo News.

One area where U.S. paramilitary trainers have been focused on helping shore up defenses against a Russian strike or occupation is the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to a former CIA executive...
There is widespread expectation that the new Russian offensive will seek to wrest the city, which is strategically located on the Sea of Azov, from Ukrainian control...

The U.S. has also provided over $2.7 billion in military aid to Ukraine since 2014, according to the State Department, “to help Ukraine preserve its territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO.”
https://news.yahoo.com/how-the-us-helped-ukraine-prepare-for-a-russian-invasion-210407079.html


23 posted on 03/11/2022 4:36:24 PM PST by MAGAthon
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To: MAGAthon

re Jana Winter who wrote the second Yahoo piece with Dorfman:

Jana Winter is an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C. She was a 2018-2019 Spotlight fellow at The Boston Globe, and prior to that, a contributing writer at Foreign Policy.


27 posted on 03/11/2022 4:38:24 PM PST by MAGAthon
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To: MAGAthon

How comforting. Worked out well in Vietnam /s


29 posted on 03/11/2022 4:40:38 PM PST by Long Jon No Silver
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