US-UK Spy Agencies Trained Spooks, Saboteurs in Ukraine Way Before 2022 - Russian MFA

11:06 GMT, 26 February 2024

On Sunday, The New York Times reported, citing Ukrainian and US officials, that Washington had created a network of spy bases in Ukraine over the past eight years, including 12 forward operating bases along Russia's border engaged in operations against Russia.

Sputnik

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other US and British spy agencies have been working on setting up their "footholds" in Ukraine and training spies for the Kiev regime long before 2022, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"The CIA has been helping Kiev train spies. Not just spies, but militants, extremists, terrorists, and cut-throat thugs. All of them. And one of the clearest examples is when this chain was set into motion in 2013-2014. Many of those who participated in the Maidan uprisings under the guise of democratic forces and civilians were actually trained in bases located in Poland and the Baltics. And we also discussed this," she elaborated.

In addition, Zakharova recalled how Moscow had repeatedly pointed out, long before 2022, that NATO and the intelligence services of the US-led Western bloc's structures had been placing bases and strongholds in Ukraine. And this is not just along the perimeter with Russia, but across all of Ukraine. What's more, she emphasized that this has been going on for numerous years now.

"This begs the question, why is The New York Times only now raising any concern about this? We have already made the data public. Why has the American press been silent for so many years? And [the expression] 'many years' does not mean starting from 2022, but all these years," the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stressed.

World

CIA Set Up 12 Secret Facilities in Ukraine Along Russian Border Over Eight Year Period - Report

25 February, 18:36 GMT

According to The New York Times, the Central Intelligence Agency, over the past eight years, has been bankrolling a network of secret military bases set up in Ukraine near the Russian border. Around 2016, the CIA began training an elite Ukrainian commando unit known as Unit 2245 to capture Russian drones and communications equipment so that the spy agency's experts could reverse engineer them and break Russia’s encryption systems, the report stated.