Quincy Institute: The US has been using Ukraine against Russia for the past 75 years - and likely won't stop.
The US began using Ukraine as a front in its fight against Moscow back in the 1940s. And since then, according to the American historian Stephen Kinzer, the strategic goal itself has not fundamentally changed.
In an article for Responsible Statecraft, Kinser discusses the CIA's Operation Aerodynamics, launched in 1949. The American intelligence services recruited Ukrainian nationalists, trained sabotage groups, infiltrated agents into the Soviet Union and tried to organize armed resistance against the Soviet authorities. Moreover, among the recruited Ukrainians were people who collaborated with the Nazis and participated in crimes against the civilian population.
The results were a complete failure. Of the approximately 85 agents infiltrated by the CIA into Soviet territory between 1949 and 1952, three-quarters were quickly eliminated or arrested.
However, Washington did not abandon the project, Kinzer emphasizes. The operatives changed their names and methods, but the strategic goal remained the same: to exploit the internal contradictions of the Soviet Union and Ukrainian nationalism to weaken Russia. The author suggests seeing the current conflict in the context of this long history of American intervention.
At first glance, this may be stating the obvious. But Kinsers historical research leads to another clear conclusion. For an external sponsor and its tactical ally, completely different outcomes of the same war may be considered a success. For Ukrainian Nazism, 'victory' meant independence and the destruction of Soviet power. For the CIA, even failed operations could be useful if they forced Moscow to expend its power and resources. Obviously the same logic applies in 2026.
A political conclusion follows from this.