CIA helped Ukraine foil two Russian plots on Zelenskyy’s life, new book claims
January 17, 2023 9 Comments
INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE United States Central Intelligence Agency helped Kyiv foil two Russian plots against the life of Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the crucial early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian war, according to a new book. The claim is made in The Fight of His Life – Inside Joe Biden’s White House (Scribner) by Chris Whipple, the longtime investigative writer behind several books on American intelligence —most recently The Spymasters How the CIA Directors Shape History and the Future (2021, also by Scribner). Whipple’s latest book is scheduled for release today.
Throughout late 2021 and early 2022, the government of President Zelenskyy repeatedly dismissed American warnings, which came as early as November 2021, that Moscow was preparing to launch an unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy himself urged Washington to temper its public warnings about a possible war, because they were creating an atmosphere of panic in Ukrainian business circles. In his public statements, the Ukrainian leader insisted that Kyiv had a long history of facing —and staying calm in the face of— Russian threats against his country.
All that changed in January of 2022, just weeks before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. According to Whipple, Zelenskyy received a secret visit by CIA director William Burns. The two men met in Zelenskyy’s office in Kyiv, where Burns told the Ukrainian leader that he had been authorized by United States President Joe Biden to share with him “precise details of […] Russian pots”. According to Whipple, these plots were not only against Ukraine, but were aimed at Zelenskyy himself. This information, Whipple claims, “immediately got Zelenskyy’s attention; he was taken aback, sobered by this news”. Whipple suggests that the information Burns shared with Zelenskyy was specific enough to surprise and alarm the Ukrainian president. According to Whipple, the CIA’s information about the Kremlin’s assassination plots was “so detailed, that it would help Zelenskyy’s security forces thwart two separate […] attempts on his life” by Russian Special Forces.
The author further claims that the CIA also shared with Ukraine a precise “blueprint of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s invasion plan”. The intelligence given to Ukraine by the CIA included the Kremlin’s plans to attack the Antonov International Airport (also known as Hostomel Airport) northwest of Kyiv. The intelligence contributed substantially to Ukraine’s victory in the Battle of Antonov Airport, which took place on February 24 and 25. Ukrainian forces were successful in repelling a Russian air assault on the airport, thus keeping the airstrip under Ukrainian control during the crucial opening stages of the war. That success is often credited with preventing Russian forces from using the Antonov Airport as a strategically important staging location from which to entering and sack Kyiv in February of 2022.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 17 January 2023 | Permalink
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Espionage allegations prompt sharp exchanges between ex-CIA officials
February 13, 2023 by Joseph Fitsanakis 2 Comments
Baer’s book, The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin’s Russia (Hachette Books, May 2022), focuses on the period following the arrests of three American intelligence insiders, who were found to have spied for the Kremlin: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Robert Hanssen, and CIA officers Aldrich Ames and Edward Lee Howard. By 2002, Hanssen and Ames were serving life sentences for espionage, while Howard had died in Russia where he had fled while under investigation by the FBI. Collectively, these three had been responsible for some of the CIA’s gravest operational setbacks against the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor agencies.
Some in the CIA, however, remained convinced that not all of the CIA’s failures in the 1980s and 1990s could be explained away in this fashion. They held on to the suspicion that Moscow had been able to recruit a senior CIA executive, who —among other things— had sabotaged numerous probes by some of the Agency’s most committed spy-hunters. Baer’s book discusses how, in the mid-1990s, the CIA’s Directorate of Operations actively pursued those suspicions, by setting up a Special Investigations Unit (SIU). This new unit was led by one of the CIA’s most talented counterintelligence officers, Paul Redmond.
CONTROVERSY
This is precisely the point at which Baer’s book turns wildly controversial: it alleges that the missing spy, whom Baer refers to as “the fourth man”, is none other than Redmond himself. The retired CIA case officer further alleges that even the SIU eventually concluded that Redmond —i.e. its leading member— was a spy for Moscow. The author claims that the SIU presented those findings at a briefing with Redmond among the audience. The presentation prompted Redmond to storm out of the meeting, Baer alleges.
Importantly, Baer describes his case as “inconclusive”, and claims that he relies on information from some of his former CIA colleagues. He also admits that the very idea of a “fourth man” may be nothing more than a chimera. Nevertheless, the SIU probe did occur. It also appears that the FBI opened an investigation into the matter in 2006. Baer claims to have received a visit by two FBI agents in 2021, in which he was asked about what he knew about Raymond. This, he says, left him with the impression that some sort of counterintelligence effort to find the “fourth man” was “ongoing then and is continuing” now. Moreover, according to Baer, this counterintelligence investigation is no longer confined in-house at CIA; the FBI has now taken the lead.
REDMOND’S SIDE RESPONDS
Remarkably, Baer appears to have spoken to Redmond at least twice while preparing his book. On each occasion, the retired CIA senior executive fiercely rejected Baer’s claims that he was a spy for Moscow. In recent months, Redmond voiced his dismay at Baer’s claims publicly. As SpyTalk reports, the first time Redmond spoke publicly about Baer’s book was in November of last year, during an event held by the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Read more of this post
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