The Ukraine Border is Ground Zero for Profiteers and Spooks

A military vehicle driving on a Polish highway, March 21, 2022. Photo by MT

A few days ago at a hotel restaurant in Rzeszow, Poland, I heard someone — clearly an American male — yapping loudly on the phone about his close relationship with unspecified Special Forces. As you might imagine, my interest was piqued. There are tons of Americans roaming around southeast Poland, including active duty military and Pentagon civilian personnel. One of these civilians told me his purview was merely on the “maintenance” side of things — i.e., “maintaining” the ever-growing US military deployment in the area — and as such was “not involved with that mess down by the border.” Which I took to be a reasonably accurate description of his activities.

This phone-yapping guy, though, was another thing altogether. He bragged about being in direct contact with the “General Staff” of the Ukraine military. He claimed to be running his own operation of some kind, for which the “spend” was “over a mil” on the day he was yapping. “There’s stuff getting across without getting to Ukrainians,” he complained.