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It was a secret CIA training program on Ukrainian soil that helped Kiev prepare properly for the Russian invasion, according to exclusive Yahoo News reports.
The publication points out that Ukrainian snipers were faced with a significant problem: Russian forces in eastern Ukraine were trying to blind them. While the Ukrainians were looking for their targets through the scopes of their weapons, the Russians had spotted them using the glow of glass. So they fired high-definition lasers towards them, which damaged the snipers' vision.
The two sides were in close proximity. By early 2014, Russia had already invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula. Shortly afterwards, pro-Russian rebels in the eastern Donbas region launched a secessionist war against Kiev. Russian troops soon joined the fight while the CIA - quietly - did the same.
According to former U.S. officials, as the battle lines in Donbass grew increasingly hard, a small, select group of CIA paramilitary veterans made the first secret trips to the front lines of the battle to meet with their Ukrainian counterparts.
They soon concluded that they were up against an adversary whose capabilities far exceeded the Islamist groups with which the CIA had fought in the post-9/11 wars. "We learned a lot very quickly," says a former senior intelligence official - including the Russians' laser-blinding techniques. "This sh... would not have happened with the Taliban," he added."
Despite being in the 23rd day of the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian army is holding out, keeping key cities under its control while launching significant strikes against its rivals. In fact, 17 top generals and officers of the army have died so far and one of them, Major General Andrei Sukovetsky, was killed by sniper fire.
Former US intelligence officials stress that at least part of the Ukrainian forces' fierce resistance has its roots in a covert CIA training program "run" from Ukraine's eastern fronts.
This particular program was described by several former officials who requested anonymity in order to report freely on sensitive intelligence matters.
It is noted that part of the program involved sniper techniques, namely:
- How to handle US-supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles and other equipment;
- How to avoid the digital tracking used by the Russians to pinpoint the location of Ukrainian troops, which they had left vulnerable to artillery attacks.
- How to use covert communication tools.
- How to remain undetected in the war zone while moving Russian forces and rebel groups away from their positions.
Source: Proto Thema
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