Journalist Aaron Maté told Judge Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday that the CIA is still "running, if the New York Times is to be believed, 12 secret bases inside of Ukraine," and still controlling Ukrainian intelligence agencies it "effectively rebuilt from scratch after Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014." He made the claim in an interview for Napolitano's Judging Freedom podcast, recorded on Election Day, Nov. 3, in an episode titled "CIA and MI6 vs Trump in Ukraine."
Maté's source for the bases is a February 2024 New York Times investigation, which as Ukrainska Pravda summarized it, described a CIA-supported network of spy bases built over about eight years, including 12 secret locations along the Russian border, with a partnership dating to 2014.
"How pervasive is the CIA in Ukraine today?" Napolitano asked. To which Maté replied:
"Well, it's so pervasive that it was the one that orchestrated this drone campaign against Russian energy facilities that Trump recently started opposing. It was Trump's CIA that came up with that and was helping Ukraine do that. And Trump was on board with it until he needed something to sell voters on ahead of the midterms, whereas war on Iran was causing such a spike in energy prices."
Maté said Trump has since pulled back and criticized Volodymyr Zelensky, "the CIA, as far as I know, is continuing its operations as normal," and that it is "still helping out with targeting" and "still providing intelligence."
