The CIA wrote its secret rules to prevent an escalation of the war, which have been “accepted” by the contenders but also by dozens of countries that support the resistance or border Russia and Ukraine.
Barely a month after Russian tanks crossed the Ukrainian border, Burns flew to Warsaw to meet with Polish intelligence chiefs and negotiate the deal that would allow the CIA to use the country as a secret hub. Warsaw and Washington have enjoyed excellent relations since the end of the Cold War: between 2002 and 2003, at the height of the war on terror, the country housed CIA torture centers, the notorious haunts of blacks whose existence Poles only admitted for a decade later in the village of Stare Kiejkuty and near Szymany Airport, where, among others, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested.
After the start of hostilities in Donbass and Crimea in 2014, relations intensified and the agency established Europe’s third-largest operational base in Poland. In the meantime, the country has become a NATO reaction center: on the one hand it has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees, on the other hand it was the most important logistics hub for the transport of weapons and aid supplies sent by the Allies to Ukraine. On Polish territory – where American arms and ammunition are stored – Washington also established the headquarters of the Army’s Fifth Corps in Poznań and not far away in Biedrusko, the first permanent garrison, which now has 10,000 soldiers, to guard the Poles on the War prepare use of Abrams tanks.
However, according to American journalist William Arkin in his investigation published in Newsweek, Poland’s most delicate role is the one it plays in the CIA’s secret war. In April, Burns returned to Warsaw, where he met with Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski, the coordinator of the “special services,” to discuss cooperation between the two countries, particularly on gathering intelligence. It is from here that CIA agents actually manage relations with agents and spies – especially Russians and Ukrainians – but also with members of the special forces of about twenty countries, all stationed in Poland, and conduct cybernetic operations with Polish partners.
This very close cooperation, Arkin says, was fundamental last November when a rocket landed in the Polish town of Przewodow and threatened an accidental escalation. That day, Burns was in Ankara at Turkey’s intelligence headquarters to reiterate that the United States would not tolerate nuclear threats and to reiterate the importance of “strategic stability.” From there he flew to Kiev to deliver the message to Zelenskyy. On the way, the rocket killed two Polish peasants about thirty kilometers from the border.
A Russian attack on a NATO country would have automatically implemented Article 5, bringing the entire alliance to war, but the United States — which tracks and monitors every missile fired — knew the missile had accidentally hit Ukraine : as soon as he received the information from Washington, Burns passed it on to Polish President Andzej Duda, thereby avoiding a global crisis.