This article by Lindsay Dodgon was originally published by Business Insider.
Ukrainian special ops commandos are freelancing sabotage missions in Russia, a military source told The Times of London.
The officer, named only as Mykola, told The Times operatives are being trained to carry out sabotage, poisonings, assassinations, and diversions behind enemy lines.
They dress in civilian clothes, carry fake documents, and use only their steps to orient themselves, he said.
The missions are so secret even Mykola’s superiors don’t know about them, he said. The need for top-secret assignments is partly due to dwindling funds making their way to Ukraine from the EU and the US, according to The Times.
“It’s off the books,” Mykola told The Times at his classified training camp’s base. “The government is too slow and bureaucratic. We need to train people fast and get them ready. There are no government specialized training camps for the kind of operations needed to fight this war.”
Ukraine is also struggling to keep up with the sheer amount of Russian soldiers and Russia’s drone army, which outweighs them by 7 to 1. Mykola acknowledged this, believing these missions give Ukraine an edge.
“We can only compete in surgical techniques,” he said. “Technology and our entrepreneurial mindset will defeat Russian meat and steel.”
Mykola also explained the optimum conditions for a cross-border mission into Russia, such as low cloud that hides the moon and stars.
“They will dress in civilian clothes, carry fake papers, no phones, use a compass, a map and count their steps to orient themselves,” he explained.
Related: The social hierarchy of US special operations units
Most of the missions are “too low-key” to explain, Mykola added, “mainly because the Kremlin is keen to keep quiet about the humiliation of Ukrainian special ops commandos roaming around Russian countryside.”
But he did admit that “men like him” were responsible for the drone attacks on the Kremlin in May 2023.
“We also have Russians inside Russia who help us, people who see how senseless this war is and hate the criminal regime,” he said.
Mykola also criticized missions of other military operatives in the Ukrainian army, such as a daring jet ski raid on Crimea, which was caught on video, calling it “a complete waste of time and resources.”
“We call the people who carried it out Spielberg brigades,” he said. “They went, they saw, they filmed.
“As usual Kyrylo was more interested in sending people out to make promotional films than serious operations.”
Meanwhile, the Kyiv Post reported that anti-Putin dissidents fighting for Ukraine in the Liberty of Russia Legion had launched a new incursion into Russian territory on Sunday. According to sources in the Ukrainian intelligence community, there was renewed fighting in the Belgorod region.
“Russia is unable to control security within its borders. Putin’s security forces cannot ensure the safety of their citizens,” the source said to Kyiv Post.
The Legion was last active in the summer, but little has been heard of the outfit since.
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