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CIA, MI6 help Ukraine’s SBU spy agency in plotting covert operations, says ex-officer

Vasily Prozorov said that there are representatives of foreign non-governmental organizations, for instance, the Rand Corporation, present within the Ukrainian security agencies

MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/. Operatives from American and British intelligence services are directly participating in hatching secret plots with Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and training personnel to carry them out, SBU ex-employee Vasily Prozorov said at a news conference on Monday.

"I do not know for what motives. I believe this is for not only security but also conspiracy reasons, because CIA employees have been present in Kiev since 2014. They are residing in clandestine apartments and suburban houses," he said.

"However, they frequently come to the SBU’s central office for holding, for example, specific meetings or plotting secret operations," he said.

"To give specific names, specifically MI6 agents - Charles Backford and Justin Hartman - it appears, of course, I may be mistaken, came to the SBU in 2016. I remembered them because they did not only come to a meeting with the leadership of the Ukrainian Security Service but also made visits to the area of the counter-terror operation, the town of Kramatorsk, and permission for visiting this area is granted through the headquarters of the anti-terror center and so these names were mentioned," the ex-SBU employee said.

Also, a member of the [US] Defense Department’s Intelligence Agency Harry Reid also visited Ukraine, the ex-SBU agent said.

"At that moment, and this was the autumn of 2017, he seemed to be the bureau director. He came to Kiev as a representative of the Special Operations Forces and then he visited Berdichev where the Special Force’s training center is located because he directly oversaw the development of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces and in Berdichev, he checked on the activity of US green berets who were staying there as instructors," Prozorov said.

As the former Ukrainian security officer said, many representatives of foreign non-governmental organizations, for example, the Rand Corporation, are present in the Ukrainian security agencies.

"I won’t give the names right now but these documents are available because I got hold of them. So, there are a lot of them and they frequently come," the ex-employee said.

"It is also possible to recall, of course, foreign instructors who are working in ‘voluntary battalions.’ I saw with my own eyes, Swedes and Italians, for example, in Azov," he stated.

"Of course, it is possible to recall Mr. [Giorgi] Kalandadze, the former chief of the General Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces who did not just train the Dnepr and Azov units [the nationalist battalions] but trained them, among other things, in the methods of interrogations and torture," Prozorov said. "This is the first thing that comes to my mind."