CIA chief secretly visited Ukraine prior to war: Report
The director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had made a secret trip to Ukraine prior to the country's war with Russia, according to a report.
Business Insider reported on Monday that on the secret trip, CIA Director Bill Burns met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and warned him about Russia's alleged assassination plots.
Back then, in January 2022, Zelensky cast doubt on US intelligence reports which claimed Moscow had hatched a plot to assassinate him. Zelensky had dismissed the idea that Russian troops would launch a war in Ukraine and accused US President Joe Biden of spreading "panic."
Chris Whipple stated this in his forthcoming book, "The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House."
It was unusual for the US to publicly disclose intelligence like this, suggesting Washington was confident in its assessment of Russia's intentions. But just weeks before Russia's operation, Zelensky expressed concerns that such warnings would have a negative impact on the Ukrainian economy and emphasized that Kiev was used to facing threats from Russia.
The CIA director told the Ukrainian president that Russian Special Forces were coming for him, wrote Whipple, adding, Biden told Burns "to share precise details of the Russian plots."
"This immediately got Zelensky's attention; he was taken aback, sobered by this news," Whipple wrote in the book, set for release on January 17, 2023.
Russia started its special operations in Ukraine on February 24, with the declared aim of "de-Nazifying" the country.
Since then, Ukrainian officials have spoken about Zelensky surviving more than a dozen Russian assassination attempts.
Russia says a decision made by Time magazine to choose Zelensky as the “2022 Person of the Year” reflects the West's “Russophobic” policies.
Last month at a press conference, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “Time magazine employs its own criteria, which we can go on with or disagree, and it is their own editorial policy. However, in this case, the magazine’s editorial directives remain within the boundaries of the pan-European mainstream, which is totally short-sighted, anti-Russian and vehemently Russophobic.”
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