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I apologize for not writing in regards to the NY Instances article. Adam Antonous and Michael Schwartz, The Spy Warfare: How the CIA Secretly Helped Ukraine Struggle Putin, prior to now however my schedule didn’t enable me the time essential to do justice to the subject. I used to be flooded with requests for remark by many media shops and I did my finest to incorporate them in radio and TV interviews.
The principle factor it’s worthwhile to perceive is that this text is a deliberate piece of misinformation supposed to form public and policymaking opinion in the US. The subsequent opening of the article, like all propaganda, is a mix of truth and fiction.
The intelligence partnership between Washington and Kiev is a crucial basis of Ukraine's skill to defend itself. The CIA and different US intelligence businesses present intelligence for focused missile strikes, monitor Russian navy actions, and assist help spy networks.
However the partnership just isn’t a wartime creation, neither is Ukraine its sole beneficiary.
It took root a decade in the past, coming collectively below three completely different US presidents, led by key people who typically took daring dangers. This has turned Ukraine, whose intelligence businesses have been lengthy thought of fully compromised by Russia, into one in all Washington's most necessary intelligence companions in opposition to the Kremlin right this moment.
Sure, it’s true that US intelligence, in collaboration with NATO, supplied Ukraine with intelligence that was used to launch missile assaults on Russian targets. Admitting this within the pages of the NY Instances is reckless and harmful. I'm fairly certain the Russians already knew this, however placing it on the document with US intelligence sources is a purple flag for Russia. Are you able to think about the response if Russian intelligence confirmed that they supplied intelligence to a gaggle or nation planning to assault the US? Do you suppose Washington will ignore this and never retaliate? no means.
However the article begins with a giant lie claiming that the CIA's relationship with Ukraine started in February 2022 after which continues with these two lies:
Earlier than the warfare, the Ukrainians proved themselves to the Individuals by accumulating intercepts that helped show Russia's involvement within the downing of Malaysia Airways Flight 17, a industrial jetliner, in 2014. Ukrainians additionally helped Individuals go after Russian operatives who interfered within the US in 2016. presidential election.
The occasions surrounding Maidan and past in February and March 2014 I imagine included a joint US/UK intelligence operation to take away Ukrainian President Yanukovych and set up a pro-Western authorities that was used to assault Russia. Might be completed. The very fact of the matter is that the CIA has been coping with Ukrainian opponents of Russia since at the very least 1947.
The promotional goal of the article is revealed by the journalists' choice to repeat particular claims that Russia shot down Malaysia Airways Flight 17 and that Russia “interfered” within the 2016 US presidential election. We’ve got had a number of revelations over the previous two months, primarily from Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger, indicating that it was the Clinton marketing campaign with the assistance of the CIA and FBI that interfered within the failed 2016 presidential marketing campaign. Donald Trump. Antonous and Schweitz falsely claimed that Ukraine pointed the finger at a Russian official chargeable for “election interference.”
In a joint operation, the HUR crew tricked an officer of Russia's navy intelligence service into offering data that allowed the CIA to hyperlink the Russian authorities to the so-called Fancy Bear hacking group, which is concerned in election interference in a number of nations. Was linked to the efforts. ,
No, Fancy Bear was a CIA creation that used Vault 7 instruments to create a faux cyber path implicating Russian intelligence. I mentioned the CIA's position on this operation 4 years in the past in my article, Did John Brennan's CIA Create Guccifer 2.0 and the DeLeaks? Right here is the related a part of that piece:
In October 2015, John Brennan reorganized the CIA. As a part of that restructuring they created a brand new directorate – the Digital Innovation Directorate. Its mission was to “manipulate the digital footprint”. In different phrases, this was the identical directorate that created Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. Creating digital mud is one in all his specialties.
We additionally know, because of WikiLeaks, that the CIA was utilizing software program particularly designed to cover CIA exercise and make it seem as if it was completed by a international entity. Wikipedia describes Vault 7 paperwork:
Vault 7 is a sequence of paperwork that WikiLeaks started publishing on March 7, 2017, detailing the actions and capabilities of the US Central Intelligence Company to conduct digital surveillance and cyber warfare. The 2013–2016 recordsdata comprise particulars on the company's software program capabilities, akin to the flexibility to compromise vehicles, sensible 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 akin to Microsoft Home windows, macOS, and Linux(5)(6)
One software in Vault 7 has the innocuous identify of Marble. HackerNews explains the aim and performance of Marble:
Half 3 of the CIA recordsdata, named “Marble”, incorporates 676 supply code recordsdata of a secret anti-forensic Marble framework, which is principally an obfuscator or a packer used to cover the actual supply of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework software consists of varied algorithms deliberately mixed with international language textual content in malware supply code to idiot safety analysts and falsely accuse the fallacious nation of an assault.The whistleblowing website says Marble is used to stop forensic investigators and anti-virus firms from blaming the CIA for viruses, trojans, and hacking assaults.
“…for instance pretending that the malware creator's spoken language was Chinese language, not American English, however then making an attempt to cover using Chinese language, main forensic investigators much more strongly to the fallacious conclusion, ” WikiLeaks explains.
So guess what harmless techies “found” in mid-June 2016? Guccifer 2.0 communications had “Russian fingerprints” within the meta knowledge.
The aim of the Antonous/Schwartz article is easy – to painting the CIA as an awesome group that did nice work in Ukraine however was not capable of accomplish the mission of destroying Russia as a result of the Republican Congress failed to offer funding and the Ukrainian The intelligence service was uncontrolled.
Antonous and Schweitz current an emotional account of CIA and UK spies attempting to warn Ukrainian authorities that Russia was going to invade. Hey, the British even cried. However, regardless of Ukrainian intransigence, the CIA is not going to abandon Ukraine:
President Zelensky and a few of his high advisers appeared unconvinced, even after CIA Director Mr. Burns arrived in Kiev in January 2022 to transient them.
Because the Russian invasion approached, CIA and MI6 officers made a ultimate go to to Kiev with their Ukrainian colleagues. One of many MI6 officers shed tears in entrance of the Ukrainians, fearful that the Russians would kill them.
At Mr. Burns' insistence, a small group of CIA officers have been exempted from the broader American evacuation and moved to a lodge complicated in western Ukraine. He didn’t need to depart his comrades.
Then we have been instructed all of the unimaginable secrets and techniques the CIA instructed Ukraine about Russia's plans to assassinate authorities and navy leaders in Kiev. However we’re additionally instructed that CIA-trained Uki intelligence items are considerably of a rogue elephant.
On the time, Basic Budanov, the longer term head of Ukraine's navy intelligence company, was a rising star in Unit 2245. He was identified for daring operations behind enemy strains and had deep ties to the CIA. The company had skilled him and completed a rare job. After being shot in the fitting arm throughout preventing in Donbass, steps have been taken to ship him to Walter Reed Nationwide Navy Medical Middle in Maryland for rehabilitation.
Disguised in Russian uniform, then-Lt. Colonel Budanov led the commandos throughout a slender bay in an inflatable speedboat, touchdown in Crimea at night time.
However an elite Russian commando unit was ready for them. The Ukrainians retaliated and killed a number of Russian fighters, together with a normal's son, earlier than they have been pushed again to the shoreline, plunged into the ocean and swam for hours to Ukrainian-controlled territory.
it was a catastrophe. In a public handle, President Putin accused Ukrainians of plotting a terrorist assault and promised to avenge the deaths of Russian fighters.
“There is no such thing as a doubt that we are going to not let this stuff move,” he mentioned.
In Washington, the Obama White Home was livid. Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the vp and a supporter of assist to Ukraine, angrily known as the President of Ukraine to complain.
bought it? Budanov is a reckless, out-of-control detective. message delivered. Antonous and Schweitz then return to the narrative about how effectively the CIA did in defending Ukraine from the Russians. For instance, they describe how the CIA knowledgeable Zelensky that Ukraine had prevented a Russian invasion in late March 2022:
Based on a Ukrainian officer within the room, when the Russian assault on Kiev halted, the CIA station chief rejoiced and instructed his Ukrainian counterparts that they have been “punching the Russians within the face”.
it’s not true. That's a lie. Not a phrase has been written in regards to the ongoing talks in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine, which had reached an settlement in precept till the US and Britain intervened and compelled the Ukrainians to go away. Didn’t order. This can’t occur on this story. No. Another person must be blamed for the looming debacle. And Antonous and Schwartz oblige with this out of date paragraph on the finish of their article:
The query that some Ukrainian intelligence officers at the moment are asking their American counterparts – as Republicans within the Home contemplate whether or not to chop billions of {dollars} in assist – is whether or not the CIA will abandon them. “It occurred first in Afghanistan and now it's going to occur in Ukraine,” a senior Ukrainian official mentioned.
The reply to that query stays hanging. Antonous and Schweitz did their job – they strengthened the CIA and laid the blame for the upcoming defeat by the hands of the Republican Congress and the out-of-control Ukrainian intel chief, Budanov. When you perceive that you just'll perceive why Kirill Budanov is on the document within the press this week refuting US claims that Putin killed Russian-dissident Nalvan and that Russia is utilizing Iranian and North Korean missiles . Plainly Budanov understands that he can not belief the CIA to help him.