Separating Fact From Fiction In Newsweek’s Report On CIA Activities In Ukraine

After reviewing Newsweek’s report, it becomes clear that the only facts contained therein are those that are shared about the CIA’s role in Ukraine, its regional Polish hub, and managing the NATO-Russian proxy war, which were only revealed as a “limited hangout” to make other claims more believable. The rest of the narrative regarding the agency’s alleged ignorance of Kiev violating unwritten rules governing the Russian-US intelligence competition is pure fiction and only meant to manipulate Kremlin policymakers.  

Newsweek published a detailed report this week on CIA activities in Ukraine, which cited unnamed senior sources who mixed fact and faction to create a very misleading information warfare product. Titled “The CIA’s Blind Spot about the Ukraine War”, the theme is that the US’ top foreign intelligence agency is allegedly playing the role of good guys by trying to mitigate Russian-Ukrainian tensions. A senior intelligence officer is even quoted as saying that their activities in Ukraine are “not nefarious.”

The piece begins by claiming that Russia and the US are largely complying with unofficial rules governing their respective clandestine operations against the other, but this fails to stand up to scrutiny when recalling Ukraine’s attacks within its neighbor’s pre-2014 borders. It’s precisely to manipulate Russian policymakers’ perceptions about America’s adherence to these same rules in spite of those inconvenient facts that Newsweek published their puff piece about the CIA.

So as to make their artificially manufactured narrative semi-plausible, the outlet admits that the CIA is managing many of the operations connected to this conflict such as information sharing, logistics, and the training of Ukrainian forces, but denies that this makes them responsible for what Kiev does. Furthermore, their sources claim that the agency’s role isn’t reported in order to not “provoke Putin”, instead crediting their proxies for killing Russian generals and sinking the Moskva, among other events.

That particular part of Newsweek’s article actually amounts to a tacit admission of the CIA’s hand in some of the most newsworthy developments of this conflict thus far even if that wasn’t their intent, therefore narratively neutralizing the purpose of their report. The subsequent claim that the US expressed displeasure to Zelensky over last September’s Nord Stream terrorist attack and this May’s drone strike against the Kremlin seems to just be a cover story for making them appear surprised.

After all, if it was truly the case that the CIA couldn’t detect Kiev’s plans in advance and thus stop them from crossing the invisible red lines governing the clandestine Russian-US intelligence competition, then some punishment would have naturally followed in order to deter repeat offenses. The very fact that this didn’t happen and that their proxies received even more sophisticated weapons after some time suggests that they were indirectly rewarded for these same provocations.

Newsweek wrote that “In the face of Zelensky's masterful public lobbying, the United States slowly and reluctantly agreed to supply better and longer-range weapons”, but this also isn’t an accurate description of the military-strategic dynamics either. The NATO-Russian “race of logistics”/”war of attrition” that Secretary-General Stoltenberg finally acknowledged in mid-February is what’s really responsible for this since the West simply ran out of lower-level weapons and thus could only send increasingly better ones.

They chose to continue their anti-Russian proxy war via these means instead of forcing Kiev to return to the same peace process that the Anglo-American Axis sabotaged in spring 2022. President Putin explained this last month in his meeting with war correspondents when saying that “They simply have no shells, but they have depleted-uranium shells in warehouses...this is the simplest option, because to expand production costs a lot of money and effort.” The same holds true for other military exports too.

Another misleading part of Newsweek’s piece was when their authors claimed that “Behind the scenes, dozens of countries also had to be persuaded to accept the Biden administration's limits. Some of these countries, including Britain and Poland, are willing to take more risk than the White House is comfortable with.” The reality is that Britan and Poland are the US’ top allies in NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine so it’s unbelievable that the CIA is ignorant of what they’re doing and thus isn’t responsible.  

All allegations that the CIA is kept in the dark about Poland’s operations against Russia are discredited by what Newsweek itself revealed later on in their article. According to their sources, “Less than a month after Russian tanks crossed the border on their way to Kyiv, CIA Director Burns landed in Warsaw, visiting with the directors of Poland's intelligence agencies and putting together the final agreements that would allow the CIA to use Ukraine's neighbor as its clandestine hub.”

The outlet therefore wants their audience to think that Poland is unilaterally “tak[ing] more risk than the White House is comfortable with” regarding the invisible red lines governing the clandestine Russian-US intelligence competition despite that country literally being the CIA’s “hub” for waging this proxy war. No objective observer would believe that the CIA has no idea what Poland is doing and thus can’t stop it, which suggests that the agency also had a hand in the “Polish Volunteer Corps’” Belgorod raid in May.

While there’s a chance that “CIA (direct) operations (in Ukraine thus far) were always conducted with an eye to avoid direct confrontation with Russian troops”, it almost certainly isn’t the case that the CIA hub in Poland was ignorant of its local allies’ role in that group’s proxy invasion of Russia’s pre-2014 borders. Newsweek even admits that “Poland's real value is its role in the CIA's secret war”, which further reinforces suspicions that the agency approves of Poland’s and Ukraine’s crossings of Russia’s red lines.

As was written earlier regarding Ukraine, the US would have punished Poland in some way or another if it truly disapproved of Warsaw’s actions in order to deter repeat offenses, but this hasn’t happened and likely won’t ever since the CIA relies on those two as state-level proxies against its New Cold War rival. Despite how obvious this observation is after reading between the lines of their piece, Newsweek made a final attempt near the end to mislead their audience about everything.

They quoted an unnamed senior Polish government official who claimed that “In my humble opinion, the CIA fails to understand the nature of the Ukrainian state and the reckless factions that exist there. I hesitate to say that the CIA has failed...(but Ukraine’s continued crossing of Russia’s red lines) could have disastrous consequences.” This is nothing but a clever ploy to absolve both America and Poland of Kiev’s provocations, but that innuendo is completely discredited by the insight shared throughout this analysis.

After reviewing Newsweek’s report, it becomes clear that the only facts contained therein are those that are shared about the CIA’s role in Ukraine, its regional Polish hub, and managing the NATO-Russian proxy war, which were only revealed as a “limited hangout” to make other claims more believable. The rest of the narrative regarding the agency’s alleged ignorance of Kiev violating unwritten rules governing the Russian-US intelligence competition is pure fiction and only meant to manipulate Kremlin policymakers.