Another Conspiracy Theory True: NY Times Says CIA Been Involved In Ukraine For More Than Decade

 Zero Hedge reports: "CIA Built '12 Secret Spy Bases' In Ukraine & Waged Shadow War For Last Decade, Bombshell NYT Report Confirms." An excerpt:

    On Sunday The New York Times published an explosive and very belated full admission that US intelligence has not only been instrumental in Ukraine wartime decision-making, but has established and financed high tech command-and-control spy centers, and was doing so long prior to the Feb. 24 Russian invasion of two years ago.

    Among the biggest revelations is that the program was established a decade ago and spans three different American presidents. The Times says the CIA program to modernize Ukraine's intelligence services has "transformed" the former Soviet state and its capabilities into "Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today."

    This has included the agency having secretly trained and equipped Ukrainian intelligence officers spanning back to just after the 2014 Maidan coup events, as well constructing a network of 12 secret bases along the Russian border—work which began eight years ago. These intelligence bases, from which Russian commanders' communications can be swept up and Russian spy satellites monitored, are being used launch and track cross-border drone and missile attacks on Russian territory. 

And then there is this quote from the Times article:

    Putin has long blamed Western intelligence agencies for manipulating Kyiv and sowing anti-Russia sentiment in Ukraine.

    Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the CIA, together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.

    ...U.S. officials were often reluctant to fully engage, fearing that Ukrainian officials could not be trusted, and worrying about provoking the Kremlin. Yet a tight circle of Ukrainian intelligence officials assiduously courted the CIA and gradually made themselves vital to the Americans. In 2015, Gen. Valeriy Kondratiuk, then Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, arrived at a meeting with the CIA’s deputy station chief and without warning handed over a stack of top-secret files.

Be sure to read the whole thing. According to the article, Trump was not informed of the extent of CIA activity in Ukraine. Rather, this--and Russian invasion--appear to be yet another diplomatic "success" of the Obama and Biden administrations.

    While we are on the topic of Ukraine, Time magazine explains that "Ukraine Can’t Win the War" and suggests that a peace will require Ukraine to accept the loss of territory--it simply doesn't have the manpower or resources to win back the lost territory. 

The Biden Administration is entirely correct to warn that without further massive U.S. military aid, Ukrainian resistance is likely to collapse this year. But U.S. officials also need to recognize that even if this aid continues, there is no realistic chance of total Ukrainian victory next year, or the year after that. Even if the Ukrainians can build up their forces, Russia can deepen its defenses even more.

There are still some that believe that victory is still possible. For instance, the Time magazine article notes that "retired U.S. Army General Ben Hodges among others, [contends] that Russia can be defeated, and even driven from Crimea, by long-range missile bombardment." This is reminiscent of the belief that strategic bombing could quickly end World War II, or that we could achieve victory in Vietnam through strategic bombing. 

    And a comment by Ben Wallace at The Telegraph similarly asserts that "History proves that Putin can be defeated" given Russia's generally poor showing. But even Wallace acknowledges that the war has bogged down into a war of attrition. Which means that victory will require even more support from the West:

    First of all, they need more shells and artillery. The EU has failed to deliver the one million shells it promised; I am not entirely convinced we are doing our bit either.

    The sad fact is North Korea has supplied more shells to Russia than the whole of Europe has to Ukraine in the past few months. We can and must counter Russia’s advantage, even if that means putting our own 155 shell factory on a war footing.

    If Ukraine is to win the attritional phase, she must mobilise. In 1939 we did just that. In 1941 we additionally mobilised women for “war work”. An extra 300,000 to 500,000 troops will allow proper rotation and rest for the exhausted thousands.

    But how could Ukraine train that many? The answer is we will do it for them. The UK has already trained and equipped over 30,000 in a year. A new coalition of European nations could easily train another 200,000.

    Remember every Ukrainian soldier is already now better trained than every Russian “cannon fodder”. President Zelensky is worried about who will pay for this mobilisation. The billions are right in front of our eyes. After the murder of Navalny there is now no excuse not to seize all those Russian assets lurking in Europe, London and the USA and use them for Ukraine.

Yes, let's double down, throw good money after bad, further cement an alliance between Russia and China, and make the rest of the world even more afraid to trust Western financial institutions, just to deny the peoples of eastern Ukraine the right to self-determination and secure Ukraine's borders while gleefully admitting tens of millions of invaders into the West.