The CIA-directed sabotage cells setting Russia ablaze

The story the CIA doesn't want you to read

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on Dec. 24, 2022, on the now-defunct personal website of Jack Murphy, co-founder of The High Side. It is reproduced here with minor editing changes, but contains no new reporting other than the material related to “The Mission” by Tim Weiner.

CIA paramilitary operatives are working with a NATO ally’s intelligence service to run sabotage operations deep inside Russia.

The campaign, which has been underway since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, involves longstanding sleeper cells that the allied spy service has activated to hinder Moscow’s operation by waging a secret war behind Russian lines.

Years in the planning, the campaign is responsible for many of the unexplained explosions and other mishaps that have befallen the Russian military industrial complex since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, according to three former U.S. intelligence officials, two former U.S. military officials and a U.S. person who has been briefed on the campaign. The former officials declined to identify specific targets attacked during the CIA-directed campaign, but railway bridges, fuel depots and power plants in Russia have all been damaged in unexplained incidents since February.