© Gavriil Grigorov/SputnikRussian Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Aleksandr Bortnikov
The CIA has "many" bases in Ukraine, the head of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Aleksandr Bortnikov told Russian television on Thursday, when asked about a New York Times report on the spy network.
The US newspaper described a decade-long record of cooperation between the American spy agency and Ukrainian special services.
According to the article, which was published last Sunday, the CIA has 12 secret bases on Ukrainian soil which are actively working against Russia. The paper wrote that over the past eight years, the CIA has trained and equipped Kiev's intelligence officers in underground bunkers, some of which are nestled deep in the forests of Ukraine.
Bortnikov told Channel 1:
"They [US intelligence] had entered there a long time ago and are using this resource to do the dirty work, on their own and with the hands of the Ukrainian special services."He said "work is ongoing," when asked whether Russia can get to the CIA sites.
Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that the Americans have far more outposts in Ukraine than the 12 bases reported by the NYT. Russia was not oblivious to the clandestine Western activities within the borders of its hostile neighbor, officials in Moscow have said.
The new report confirms that Ukrainian commando units involved in anti-Russian sabotage had received special training from American agents, who also helped them track Russian troop movements. Kiev was also behind the targeted assassination of several high-profile figures in Donbass over the years, the newspaper said.
Last year, The Washington Post published a similar expose on the CIA's role in turning Ukraine into a tool against Russia. Unlike the NYT, the Post discussed Kiev's state assassinations program in detail and Ukraine's apparent role in the deaths of journalist and political activist Daria Dugina and military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, both of whom were murdered in bomb attacks on Russian soil.
Comment: That New York Times piece was propaganda - based on some actual reporting - to help promote the passage of the $100 billion foreign aid bill, of which $60 billion is earmarked 'for Ukraine'.