The Covert Operation to Back Ukrainian Independence that Haunts the CIA

[EndtheMadnessNow]

The Covert Operation to Back Ukrainian Independence that Haunts the CIA

In late 1949, a series of unmarked flights began launching from central Europe. Gargantuan C-47s, flown by Hungarian or Czech pilots, barreled toward Turkey, and then turned north over the Black Sea, evading radar by flying barely above the ground. As the planes flew over Lviv a string of parachutes opened, a handful of commandos tumbling into the sky over Soviet Ukraine. On the ground, they linked up with Ukrainian resistance fighters trying to beat back Soviet expansionism.

Operation Red Sox, as it was known, was one of the first covert missions of the still new Cold War. The American-trained commandos would feed intelligence back to their handlers using new radio and communications equipment, stoking nascent nationalist movements in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and the Baltics. The goal was to provide the U.S. unprecedented insight into Moscow’s designs in Eastern Europe — and, if possible, to help crack apart the Soviet empire itself. Over half a decade, dozens of operatives took part in these flights, becoming one of the U.S.’s “biggest covert operations” in post-War Europe. Ukraine’s bloody insurgency was the operation’s centerpiece. And it was in Ukraine that, as one scholar wrote, the CIA saw one of its “most pronounced failures of the Cold War.”

Indeed, almost nothing about the years long mission was an actual success. Of the 85 agents who the CIA dropped into Soviet-controlled territory, it is believed that some three-quarters of them were almost immediately captured and tortured or killed outright. And their handlers, undone by a combination of hubris and Soviet misinformation, took years to catch on, sending agent after agent to their death along the Soviet Union’s western reaches.

It was a failure that few Americans recall, and which has been buried by far more successful missions elsewhere. But it’s a failure that’s suddenly worth revisiting as Moscow pushes to yet again suffocate Ukrainian sovereignty and break Ukrainian resistance, regardless of the cost. Moscow’s efforts to seize places like Kyiv and Odesa have stumbled against Ukrainian resistance, but Russia isn’t yet a spent force — especially with the prospect of broader mobilization of the Russian population getting closer to reality. Even at its most shambolic, Moscow has shown a willingness to absorb embarrassing losses while inflicting devastating damage on civilians. “I spent years talking about how the Russian military wasn’t 12 feet tall,” leading Russian analyst Michael Kofman recently said. “It’s already clear to me that I’m going to spend the coming years talking about how the Russian military is not four feet tall, either.”
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Now, nearly 75 years later, Ukraine burns once again. With Russia’s invasion dragging into its third month, eyes have begun turning to what may come next. It’s clear by now that there’s no returning to status quo ante. Despite Ukraine’s remarkable showing thus far, it appears that a new dividing line will sever part of the country yet again. A new Iron Curtain has already descended. All that remains is to discern the actual dividing line.

More at the link.

So, from this article...we did this before, but we didn't send ground troops so it failed.
We are doing it again, and we still don't plan to send ground troops, (Yet) but the militias have state sanctioned legitimacy now so it will be different.