Page 34 - Covert Action News Today

My fear is that were going to end up with ukraine effectively withdraws. that he will have, one way or another, through military attack, assassinations, through covert action in ukraine, the kind the administration has discussed, neuter the government. the government may have to flee. it will be an exile. and europe will denounce that sanctions will be imposed, but putin is used to living with what he calls, we call in foreign policy, frozen conflicts. be this ukraine thats frozen at the eastern...

Breaking news. cnn sources say the u.s. is concerned that the ukrainian capital of kyiv could fall to russia within days. the city is under attack right now. we spoke to the former president of ukraine on the streets who said vladimir putin should consider himself in hell, going to hell. joining us is cias national clandestine service for 28 years, john. you tweeted something yesterday that really caught my eye. you said im not a fan of old-fashioned covert action to destabilize governments. but...

And maybe give him some of what hes asking for? >> you know, we really need to talk about because the former generals on this channel and others are saying that we have to put no-fly zone, this talks about cia covert action, maybe the cia flying armed drones to attack the russians, but lets be clear, if we did that, it would be an act of war and we have had an understanding since world war ii that we would not get into a hot war with russia because of the danger of the nuclear conflict and i kno...

Up with other ideas. there may be options in the world of covert action that im not going to get into here that might possibly be im employed in this situation. there may be other ideas that can emerge. im very conscious of the challenges of those sitting around the situation room table that are confronted by this terrible barbarity and on the other hand by a concern that we would bring our country into what president biden has termed world war iii. >> martha: how seriously do you take putins es...

The air, theyre going to come in conflict with russian forces and that is undoubtedly going to lead to escalation of war between the two countries. we cant do that. our question what can be done? this is something weve reported on quite a bit. we have quite a strong feeling there is a gray area for covert action. that is to say u.s. military, if you had the cia to help ukraine, not just with weapons but to do things that allow for plausible deniability and this is perhaps the greatest area where...

Remember the humiliating experience in afghanistan is would this be another afghanistan for russia. certainly we would be supporting in various ways through covert action or overt or both the ukrainian forces, the ukrainian leadership and so forth. when i talked to the ukrainian parliamentary delegation, they said theyre ready to fight. this is an act of defiance by them just to stay where they are rather than to flee to the west precipitously. so that i think has to be what hes really trying to...

That is our job especially with the agency. we clengt intelligence and we do covert action. those are our admissions so for us to have people not in harms way but close enough that we can provide all of the support and give them training and hopefully somebody will give these people the lodgist ticks they need this is ridiculous. >> five shares share intelligence yerm is not amongst them. do you break that down many times of miranda warning like this and start sharing on equal level? j that i >>...

Clever in the past when they wanted to give planes to a nation and not get involved. before we even got into world war ii president roosevelt gave warplanes to great britain while we were staying out of the war itself. he had the planes delivered to the u.s. border in canada and great britain had to get them to the canadian side. why didnt the u.s. navy do something secretive and sly rather than announce out loud that it is a no go to give them the planes? >> candidly i think the united states i...

Covert action by russian forces to not just take civilian targets, but to basically occupy them. so we heard from the deputy mayor today in the last 12 hours of mariupol saying that russian forces have secured and are inside the main hospital in that city. make no mistake about it, those are human shields. if russian troops are in the hospital where there are 400 patients and we are told that there are, then they are using that building for cover. this is in keeping with what we have seen the ru...

The conversation now with former u.s. secretary of homeland security, former general counsel at the department of defense, johnson, secretary, thank you so much for joining us. what does it say about the war now that ukraine would be apparently willing and able to attack russia on its own soil? >> first, wolf, i actually have trouble referring to whats happening now in ukraine as a war. this was an illegal, unprovoked invasion by one country into the sovereign territory of another, riddled by wa...