Will Ukraine’s daring special ops insurgency SABOTAGE Putin’s illegal invasion?



While Putin is being celebrated by some members of the right, Mark Levin believes they’re absolutely misguided.

And according to him, those who do support Putin might as well have supported the KGB.

“Putin’s KGB colonel — and he was a vile, vicious, murdering colonel when he was the KGB colonel,” Levin says.

“He’s no better than all the rest of the bastards who slaughter people.”

However, while many see Russia as the superpower obliterating the much smaller underdog that is Ukraine, Ukraine is apparently wreaking “havoc in Russia.”

In early August, a team of Ukrainian commandos stormed the Russian side of the Dnipro River and took 16 men, including a senior officer, prisoner. While it’s believed to have major implications for Ukraine’s counteroffensive, it’s not the first time this has happened.

Kiev’s men have been waging a 10-month secret campaign for control over the watery front lines, which is proving to be vital for a Ukrainian win.

In an investigative piece by the Daily Mail, it is said that while “nobody expects the battle for the Dnipro to end the war in Ukraine,” it could, however, “prove to be the beginning of the end. Not just for Russia’s invasion, but for Putin’s occupation of Crimea and perhaps even for Putin himself.”

“And of course,” Levin notes, “they’re doing all this without an air force. And imagine what they could do with an air force.”

“They’ve been waiting for these F-16s forever. Poland wanted to give them their F-16s, Romania wanted to give them their F-16s. Not a lot in number but enough to at least help,” he adds.

When the Ukrainians were offered the jets of other countries that claimed they would then buy their own from the United States, Biden refused.

Now, Biden is talking about selling Ukraine some.

“But it takes six months to train up a pilot,” Levin says, noting that if we weren’t responding so late, “the Ukrainians can actually defeat the Russians in Ukraine and push them back.”

“There are people who do not want the Ukrainians to win. They don’t mind if they keep fighting and dying; they just don’t want them to win. And that turns my stomach,” he adds.


Want more from Mark Levin?

To enjoy more of "the Great One" — Mark Levin as you've never seen him before — subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Report: Clandestine CIA program prepared Ukrainian troops for war with Russia



In the months leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden's administration pulled covert Central Intelligence Agency personnel out of the country, including war-zone-hardened agency paramilitaries. The CIA operatives had been there since 2014, training Ukrainian forces in modern warfare tactics, a report from Yahoo News revealed.

Although Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine 36 days ago, the Kremlin's forces have so far been unable to capture the capital of Kyiv or crush the Ukrainian military. The most conservative U.S. estimates believe that more than 7,000 Russian troops have been killed in less than three weeks of fighting, and Ukraine's military claims to have killed at least three Russian generals.

According to half a dozen former intelligence officials who spoke to Yahoo News, the CIA's training is what has helped Ukrainian forces stymie the Russian advance.

After Russia's illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, the U.S. military operated a publicly acknowledged training program for Ukrainian troops in the western part of the country, far from the front lines of a civil war with pro-Russian separatists in the east. But at the same time, the CIA reportedly developed a covert training program on the eastern front in the Donbas region, where Ukrainian forces were directly fighting Russia-backed troops and possibly even Russian soldiers.

The covert CIA training program operated under existing authorities for the CIA and did not require new authorization, according to Yahoo News. CIA paramilitaries trained Ukrainian troops in sniper techniques; taught them how to operate Javelin anti-tank missiles and other equipment; showed them how to evade Russian surveillance; and gave them training to draw out Russian and insurgent forces from their positions, Yahoo News reported.

Former U.S. officials involved with the program believe the training was effective. “I think we’re seeing a big impact from snipers. Especially as Russian forces get bogged down from lack of supplies,” one former senior official said. “I think the training really paid off.”

Yahoo News previously reported in January that the CIA had conducted a secret U.S.-based training program for Ukrainian special operations. The outlet also said that CIA paramilitaries had traveled to eastern Ukraine to assist Kyiv's forces there, but the CIA had denied their programs were offensively oriented.

“The purpose of the training, and the training that was delivered, was to assist in the collection of intelligence,” a senior intelligence official said in January.

That statement now appears to be false.

According to Yahoo News, the CIA paramilitaries sent to Ukraine were given a twofold mission. First, they were ordered to determine how best to train Ukrainian special operations forces to fight the Russian military and separatist forces in the Donbas region. Second, the CIA operatives were told to determine the "backbone" of the Ukrainians and assess their willingness and ability to fight.

Former officials acknowledged to Yahoo News that the program carried serious risks. "Everything we did in Ukraine had a chance to be misinterpreted, and escalate the tensions,” one former official said. The CIA reportedly wanted to avoid a direct conflict with the Russians that could result in a war. Accordingly, the number of personnel initially sent to Ukraine was limited to the "low single digits," Yahoo News reported. They were directed to advise and train, but were instructed not to take part in combat.

However, after President Donald Trump assumed office in 2017, the new administration raised concerns that the CIA's Ukraine mission "might be too far-ranging," according to a former national security official.

“How far can you go with existing covert action authorities?” the official recalled asking. "If, God forbid, they’ve shot some Russians, is that a problem? Do you need special authorities for that?”

Though the Trump White House was mindful of the risks, the program continued through his presidency and into the Biden administration. It wasn't until it became clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin intended to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that President Biden pulled all CIA personnel out of the country, Yahoo News reported.

Biden's administration was "terrified of even clandestine folks being on the frontline" of Ukraine's war with Russia, a former official said.

Biden shields Ukrainians in US from deportation with temporary protection during war



The Biden administration will temporarily shield tens of thousands of Ukrainians in the United States from deportation and grant them work permits for as long as they are unable to return to Ukraine because of the ongoing war with Russia, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.

According to the agency, any Ukrainian resident in the U.S. who has been here since March 1 or earlier is eligible for Temporary Protected Status for a period of 18 months. Ukrainians who arrived in the country after March 1 are ineligible for this designation, DHS said in a release.

The federal government's action comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by land, air, and sea in what has become one of the largest wars in Europe since World War II. President Joe Biden strongly condemned Russia in his State of the Union address earlier this week, calling the attack "premeditated and unprovoked."

The president detailed economic sanctions the U.S. and European allies have placed on Russia in his address, and promised additional aid to the Ukrainian people during this conflict. He also announced that Russian flights would be cut off from American air space to "squeeze" the Russian economy as punishment for Putin's war.

Biden's administration has determined that the ongoing armed conflict in Ukraine and "extraordinary and temporary conditions" will prevent Ukrainian nationals in the U.S. from returning home safely. The TPS designation for Ukrainians in America will grant them access to work permits and enable them to remain in the U.S. after their visas expire, for as long as the status lasts.

"Russia’s premeditated and unprovoked attack on Ukraine has resulted in an ongoing war, senseless violence, and Ukrainians forced to seek refuge in other countries," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a written statement.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it had paused deportation flights to Ukraine due to the "ongoing humanitarian crisis," Reuters reported.

Since the war began, more than 1 million Ukrainians have fled their country seeking refuge in European nations to the west. Half a million of these refugees are children, according to UNICEF, which said this could be the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, CNN reported.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Thursday, "I have worked in refugee emergencies for almost 40 years, and rarely have I seen an exodus as rapid as this one."

"International solidarity has been heartwarming. But nothing -- nothing -- can replace the need for the guns to be silenced; for dialogue and diplomacy to succeed. Peace is the only way to halt this tragedy," Grandi added.