By Jeremy Kuzmarov
The Assassination Program Bears Parallels With the Vietnam Phoenix Program and Israeli Mossad Operations Targeting Palestinians
On September 9th, The Economist ran a remarkable story entitled “Ukraine’s Assassination Programme: Its Agents Have Become Expert in Dark Revenge.”
It spotlighted how the Ukrainian Security Services (SBU)’s Fifth Directorate and Special Operations Forces (SSO) are running an assassination program across regions of Ukraine occupied or reintegrated into Russia and in Russia itself, and that some SBU agents are starting to believe that these programs have gotten out of control.
An unnamed SBU counter-intelligence officer is quoted as saying that it made him uncomfortable that “marginal figures” were being targeted in operations that were designed “to impress the president rather than bring victory any closer…clowns, prostitutes and jokers are a constant around the Russian government. Kill one of them, and another will appear in their place.”
The same officer noted that Ukraine’s assassination campaign was being “driven by impulse rather than logic,” and “risked exposing sources and the extent of Ukrainian infiltration into Russia,” adding that “our security services shouldn’t do things just because they can.”[1]
These comments provide an incredible admission of an out-of-control assassination program, subsidized in effect by U.S. taxpayers, that is engaging in wanton violence and killing.
A historical parallel can be found with the CIA’s Vietnam Phoenix Program, an assassination operation designed to liquidate civilian officials supportive of the National Liberation Front (NLF), which also got out of control and was used to resolve private disputes.
The Economist, predictably, did not mention the CIA, though we know from Vasily Prozorov, a former SBU officer who defected to Russia, that the SBU was advised by the CIA since 2014, and that CIA employees have come to the SBU’s central office to plot secret operations.
A Ukrainian hit list on the Myrotvorets website is also now advertising itself as a CIA project based in Langley, Virginia, the location of the CIA’s headquarters.