Push to restart secret Ukraine programmes
The Pentagon is urging the United States Congress to resume funding a pair of top-secret programmes in Ukraine that were suspended ahead of Russia’s invasion last year, according to current and former US officials.
If approved, the move would allow American Special Operations troops to employ Ukrainian operatives to observe Russian military movements and counter disinformation.
A decision is unlikely before the northern autumn. Defence officials are preparing a proposal for lawmakers’ consideration in the coming months, when work will begin on next year’s Pentagon policy and funding bill.
If successful, the programmes could resume as soon as 2024 – though it remains unclear if the Biden Administration would allow US commandos back into Ukraine to oversee them, or if the military would seek to do this from a neighbouring country.
No American military personnel are known to have operated in Ukraine since the war began, beyond a small number tasked to the US Embassy in the capital, Kyiv.
Military officials were eager to restart the programmes in Ukraine to ensure that hard-gained relationships were not lost as the war ground on, said Mark Schwartz, a retired three-star general who led US Special Operations in Europe when the programmes began in 2018.
American commandos, using a similar funding authority, have for many years paid select foreign military and paramilitary units across the Middle East, Asia and Africa, employing them as ‘‘surrogates’’ in counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda, Islamic State and their affiliates.
Newer surrogate programmes, such as those used in Ukraine, are considered a form of ‘‘irregular warfare.’’ They are intended for use against adversaries, such as Russia and China, with whom the US is in competition, not open conflict.
Critics, including some on Capitol Hill, say such activities risk drawing the US into a more direct role in the Ukraine war. Defence officials maintain that, unlike the Pentagon’s larger and more overt effort to arm the Ukrainian military, the secretive surrogate programmes would not contribute
directly to Ukraine’s combat capability, because the operatives involved and their US handlers would be restricted to performing only non-violent tasks.
The debate has arisen as Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine nears the start of a second year, and as the Biden Administration dramatically accelerates and expands the scope of the military assistance it is providing to Kyiv, despite Russian protests and threats of escalation.
Before the invasion, US Special Operations troops were running two irregular warfare surrogate programmes in Ukraine.
In one, ‘‘we had people taking apart Russian propaganda and telling the true story on blogs’’, said a person in the Special Operations community. US commandos used the second programme to send Ukrainian operatives on surreptitious reconnaissance missions in Ukraine’s east.
■ Russia used strategic bombers, cruise missiles and killer drones in a wave of attacks across Ukraine yesterday, while Moscow’s military push that Kyiv says has been brewing for days appeared to pick up pace in eastern areas ahead of the first anniversary of its invasion.
The Ukrainian military said the Kremlin’s ground forces were focusing on Ukraine’s industrial east, especially the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the industrial Donbas region, where recent fighting has been
most intense. Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces there since 2014.
The Kremlin is striving to secure areas it illegally annexed last September – the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions – and where it claims its rule is welcomed, according to officials in Kyiv, though Russian progress is reportedly slow.
Moldova’s Ministry of Defence said a missile was detected traversing its airspace near the border with Ukraine yesterday, in an ‘‘unacceptable violation’’.
Moldova’s pro-European Union government collapsed yesterday, with Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita citing a lack of ‘‘support and trust at home’’ as she announced her resignation.
Gavrilita said no-one had expected her government, elected in 2021, to have to cope with ‘‘so many crises caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine’’, including an influx of Ukrainian refugees.
Russia cut natural gas deliveries to Moldova in October, claiming that Ukraine was siphoning some off. Russian bombing of Ukrainian infrastructure has hit Moldova’s electricity supply, causing power cuts.
US President Joe Biden will travel to Poland this month to rally allies one year after Russia’s assault on Ukraine began, the White House announced yesterday, as he aims to sustain a coalition that has supported Kyiv’s defences.