Ukraine’s intelligence services have become one of Kiev’s most effective weapons. The bombings and covert operations that have killed high-ranking Russian military personnel in recent years are the result of a decade-long effort, supported by the CIA, to rebuild Ukrainian intelligence after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
After Russia’s invasion in 2014, the CIA worked closely with Ukrainian intelligence agencies, helping to reform institutions weakened by corruption, Russian infiltration, and their “Soviet” legacy. Over time, this cooperation has created intelligence agencies capable of conducting increasingly sophisticated operations against Moscow.
Unlike military aid packages, intelligence cooperation has remained a constant feature of U.S.-Ukraine relations.
CIA and Ukraine: Secret Cooperation Against Russia
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 exposed deep weaknesses within Ukraine’s security services, including the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Years of corruption and Russian influence had undermined many institutions.
In the years that followed, Ukraine began to lay the foundations for a modern intelligence service. Valery Kondratyuk played a key role in this process, first within the SBU and then as head of HUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence service, helping to expand Ukraine’s intelligence capabilities and deepen cooperation with the CIA.
In 2015, the CIA helped create the SBU’s Fifth Directorate, a specialized unit that combined counterintelligence with special operations. The unit developed networks of agents inside the occupied territories, conducted surveillance operations, and carried out some of Ukraine’s first covert operations against Russian forces.
The cooperation succeeded in part because Ukrainian officers immediately understood what was at stake. Figures like SBU chief Valentin Nalivaychenko and Valery Kondratyuk understood both the opportunity and the necessity of strengthening ties with Washington.
What struck them most was the sense of urgency. The Ukrainians met the challenge with the same determination that many Americans experienced after 9/11. There was a realization that the stakes were existential and that the only option was to keep going.
Leaders like Kondratyuk understood that strengthening ties with Washington would require overcoming decades of mistrust dating back to the Soviet era. The Ukrainians worked patiently to earn the trust of their American counterparts, recognizing that trust had to be earned before deeper intelligence cooperation could develop.
This mindset and emphasis on building trust, combined with years of training, operational experience, and institutional reform, helped create the foundation for the intelligence services that Ukraine would rely on when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Budanov’s Generation
Among the officers who emerged from this period was the later head of the HUR, Kirill Budanov.
The Times reported in February 2024 that Budanov served in Unit 2245, an elite military intelligence unit that worked closely with the CIA after 2015. The unit specialized in recovering Russian military equipment, communications systems, and other material that could be analyzed by both Ukrainian and American intelligence agencies.
The intelligence gathered from the seized Russian equipment provided valuable insight into Moscow’s capabilities, while also helping to deepen cooperation between Ukrainian and American agencies.
Budanov was later wounded in operations against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine and received medical treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the United States. He then took over as head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service.
Officers trained in the years following the annexation of Crimea now hold top positions in Ukraine’s intelligence and security services.
Many have become the “architects” of Ukraine’s intelligence operations, while fostering a culture of competition that has led to the innovation of services such as the HUR and the SBU.
This rivalry has served as an asset, not a weakness, of the Ukrainian security apparatus.
This rivalry has contributed to some of Ukraine’s most audacious operations, including the SBU’s Operation “Spiderweb” in June 2025. After 18 months of preparation, Ukrainian agents allegedly smuggled drones deep inside Russia and launched coordinated attacks on strategic bomber bases, demonstrating capabilities that would have been difficult to imagine after the seizure of Crimea.
Trust is earned
As Ukrainian intelligence services became more capable, Americans’ confidence in their capabilities grew.
Intelligence partnerships evolve through reciprocity. When one side consistently provides useful information and demonstrates its capability, the other side feels more comfortable sharing information.
For years, Ukrainian officers have demonstrated both. As trust and cooperation have grown, so has a willingness to share increasingly sensitive information.
Ukrainian services have not simply been recipients of American aid. As they have produced increasingly valuable intelligence on Russia’s military and security services, they have become important partners in their own right, transforming the relationship into a two-way exchange of capabilities and information.
From intelligence gathering to economic warfare
The impact of the collaboration became increasingly visible after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A New York Times investigation in December reported that CIA and U.S. military officials had helped Ukraine improve its operations against Russia’s energy sector.
Rather than targeting refineries indiscriminately, the “masterminds” of these operations reportedly focused on infrastructure that is hard to replace. In one case, a CIA expert identified a critical refinery link whose destruction could put the facility out of operation for weeks.
The same logic reportedly underpins Ukraine’s operations against Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet,” the network of old ships used to export sanctioned Russian oil around the world.
These operations show how much the US-Ukraine relationship has evolved since 2014. What began as intelligence support for battlefield operations has transformed into a tool for imposing costs on Russia’s broader war machine.
A two-way partnership
Following a public confrontation between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025, Washington temporarily suspended intelligence cooperation with Kiev, raising concerns about the future of American support.
But the CIA kept personnel in the country and increased funding for various Ukraine-related programs.
The decision reflected a reality often overlooked in discussions about Western aid: Ukraine offers value to the United States.
The relationship that developed after Crimea was never just about Washington’s help to Kiev. Over time it evolved into a partnership where each side provided something the other lacked: the US offered financial resources and global reach to the Ukrainian and Kiev its knowledge of Russia that no Western intelligence agency possesses.
