Though the media claimed for months that it was a "conspiracy theory" that US forces were in Ukraine using the country as a battleground for a US-led proxy war with Russia, the New York Times confirmed on Friday that CIA personnel are on the ground directing the war.
From The New York Times, "Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say":
As Russian troops press ahead with a grinding campaign to seize eastern Ukraine, the nation’s ability to resist the onslaught depends more than ever on help from the United States and its allies — including a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training, according to U.S. and European officials.
Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials.