CIA has built 12 secret spy “forward operating bases” in the thick Ukrainian forest along the Russian border.
According to the New York Times, the American agency has trained and equipped Ukraine's intelligence officers in underground bunkers over the past 10 years, as well as fully financing and partially equipping them.
Initially US intelligence was reluctant to work with Kyiv because it feared that many Ukrainian officials that were part of the Soviet regime might be compromised and would pass information to Russia.
But that changed when in 2015 Ukraine's Military Intelligence Directorate handed over a stack of top-secret files to the CIA without warning.
The secret spy bases act as the "nerve centre" of Ukraine's military, used to track Russian spy satellites
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The secret spy bases act as the "nerve centre" of Ukraine's military, used to track Russian spy satellites.
They eavesdrop on communications between Russian commanders and report back to the CIA.
Initially the Ukrainians intercepted more Russian communications than the CIA station in Kyiv could handle.
As a result of the spy bases, the US embassy in Kyiv “became the best source of information, signals and everything else about Russia,” a former senior US official told the New York Times.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
The CIA has trained and equipped Ukraine's intelligence officers in underground bunkers over the past 10 years
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The partnership between Langley and Kyiv saw the CIA training a "new generation of Ukrainian spies", who operated in Russia, Europe and Cuba.
They also began training an elite Ukrainian commando force named Unit 2245.
This unit captured Russian drones and communications equipment so that American technicians could crack's the Russian encryption systems.
CIA officers were stationed in Ukraine up until the weeks before Russia's invasion in February 2022.
The CIA began training an elite Ukrainian commando force named Unit 2245
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Despite their departure, they helped to relay "critical intelligence, including where Russia was planning strikes and which weapons systems they would use".
Ivan Bakanov, former head of Ukraine's domestic intelligence agency, the SBU, said: "Without them, there would have been no way for us to resist the Russians, or to beat them."
CIA director, William J Burns, made a secret visit to Ukraine last week, his 10th in total since the invasion two years ago.
An agency official told the New York Times: "We have demonstrated a clear commitment to Ukraine over many years and this visit was another strong signal that the US commitment will continue."