Explosive leaked documents reviewed by The Grayzone show how a shady transatlantic collective of academics and military-intelligence operatives conceived schemes which would lead to the US “helping Ukraine resist,” to “prolong” the proxy war “by virtually any means short of American and NATO forces deploying to Ukraine or attacking Russia.”
The operatives assembled their war plans immediately in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and delivered them directly to the highest-ranking relevant US National Security Council official in the Biden administration.
Proposed operations ranged from covert military options to jihadist-style psychological operations against Russian civilians, with the authors insisting, “we need to take a page from ISIS’ playbook.”
ISIS was not the only militant outfit upheld as a model for Ukraine’s military. The intelligence cabal also proposed modernizing IEDs, like those staged by Iraqi insurgents against occupying US troops, for a potential stay-behind guerrilla army in Russia, which would attack rail lines, power plants and other civilian targets.
Many of the cabal’s recommendations were subsequently enacted by the Biden administration, dangerously escalating the conflict and repeatedly crossing Russia’s clearly-stated red lines.
Included among the proposals were providing extensive training to “Ukrainian expatriates” in using Javelin and Stinger missiles, enabling “cyberattacks on Russia by ‘patriotic hackers’ with deniability,” and flooding Kiev with “unmanned combat air vehicles.” It was also foreseen that “replacement fighter aircraft” would be provided by “many sources,” and that “non-Ukrainian volunteer pilots and ground crews” would be recruited to fight air battles in the manner of the Flying Tigers, a World War II-era force composed of American Air Force pilots, which was formed in April 1941 to help the Chinese oppose Japan’s invasion before Washington’s formal entry into the conflict.
The document was written and cosigned by a quartet of academic armchair warriors with colorful pasts. They included historian Andrew Orr, the director of the University of Kansas Institute for Military History. His recent academic contributions include a chapter in an obscure academic volume entitled, “Who is a Soldier? Using Trans Theory to Rethink French Women’s Military Identity in World War II.”
Joining him was Ash Rossiter, assistant professor of international security at the United Arab Emirates’ Khalifa University, and described as “ex-British Army Intelligence Corps.” Also participating was Marcel Plichta, then a doctoral candidate at St. Andrews. He’s described as a veteran of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, and his LinkedIn profile indicates he interned at NATO before working in roles with Pentagon contractors, then joined the DIA as an intelligence analyst. Along the way, Plichta claims to have “[nominated] known or suspected terrorists to the national watchlisting and screening community.”
Also involved in the academic cabal was Zachary Kallenborn, a self-styled US Army “mad scientist” currently pursuing his PhD in War Studies at King’s College London, with a focus on drones, WMD, and other edgy forms of modern warfare. Kallenborn, who has moonlighted at the DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, contributed to the Ukraine war planning by offering proposals for Iraqi insurgent-style “smart” IED attacks on Russian targets, and planting bombs on Russian trains and railways.
St. Andrews University senior lecturer Marc Devore
The cabal appears to have been led by Marc R. DeVore, a senior lecturer at Britain’s St. Andrews University. Little about his personal or professional background can be ascertained online, although his most recent academic publications discuss military strategy. Around the time the secret proposal document was being drafted, he published an article with Orr for the Pentagon’s in-house Military Review journal entitled “Winning by Outlasting: The United States and Ukrainian Resistance to Russia.” Moreover, he is a fellow at the elite Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre, a Ministry of Defence-run “think tank.”
Emails show DeVore passed the group’s handiwork directly to Col. Tim Wright, who was the Director for Russia in the Biden administration’s National Security Council (NSC) at the time the emails were sent, according to his LinkedIn profile. Since July 2022, Wright has been the Assistant Head for Research and Experimentation in the Futures Directorate of the British Army.
The Grayzone attempted to contact Orr, Rossiter, and Devore by phone and email in order to solicit comment about their role in proxy war scheme, and about whether St. Andrews University was aware it was being used as a base for planning terror attacks against Russia. None have responded to our requests.
Surging the Ukrainian diaspora to the front
Once the Ukraine proxy war erupted with full force in February 2022, the cabal of military academics quickly laid out what they described as “ideas of varying practicality that may not have been considered that Western states can collectively take to strengthen Ukraine’s ability to resist and hopefully preserve its independence.” Dedicated sections spelled out five suggestions, along with “background for such action and possible avenues for implementing them.” They boasted that the “fastest proposals” in the document were “executable in little over a week.”
First on the list was arming Ukrainian emigres with anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, due to Kiev’s lack of “trained crews to operate the large numbers of missiles” being shipped to them by the West. They cited the little-known October 1973 Operation Nickel Grass as a means of “providing trained crews along with the hardware.” Under that mission’s auspices, Tel Aviv’s embassy in Washington “mobilized Israeli students studying at American universities,” who were then “rushed… through a rapid training program” by the US military.
This included teaching the conscripts how to use weapons similar to Javelin and Stinger missiles. The Israelis were then airdropped onto the frontlines of the 1973 Yom Kippur War against Syria and Egypt, where they “achieved ample tank kills before the two-week war had concluded.” The academics proposed doing “the same for Ukraine,” due to “large numbers of Ukrainian young men” living in the West, some of whom would have completed compulsory military training before emigrating.
This diaspora, it was believed, could easily be identified and recruited due to their registration with Ukrainian “consulates or embassies” in the West, then given “intensive classes” in using “shoulder-launched missiles” before being dispatched to Kiev.
“Volunteer cyber warriors” conceal state hacking
The quartet’s plans extended into the realm of cyberware, calling for “Western intelligence agencies” to “provide cyber tools and suggestions” to “volunteer hackers who want to strike their blow for Ukrainian independence, while also warning them what targets we do not want attacked.”
A “major task for these volunteer cyber warriors,” the four wrote, “could be to make certain that videos of Russian indiscriminate attacks, the use of objectionable weapons such as thermobarics, Ukrainian civilian casualties, Russian casualties and poor befuddled captured Russian conscripts” were made available to Russian audiences. Simultaneously, “patriotic hackers” could seek to bombard Russians with propaganda “about domestic opposition to the war.”
The intelligence cabal made clear they aimed to achieve the same psychological impact as the world’s most notorious terrorist organization, declaring, “we need to take a page from ISIS’ playbook in agilely communicating our message to Russians.”
The activities of these “volunteer cyber warriors” were designed to provide cover for more formal, state-level hack attacks on Russian cyber infrastructure. “The greater the volume of freelance cyber-attacks on Russia, the greater also will be the opportunities for Western intelligence agencies to launch surgical cyber-attacks to disrupt key systems at key moments… because these will be more plausibly attributable to the truly amateur component,” the four academics evangelized.
The description offered strongly resembles the so-called “IT Army of Ukraine,” a volunteer cyber militia propped up in the days after Russia’s invasion. Since then, it’s been overseen by Mikhailo Federov, the Ukrainian digital czar credited by the BBC with pressuring Samsung and Nvidia to cease operations in Moscow, and getting PayPal to de-bank all its Russian clients.
Ukraine’s cyber army collaborates closely with Anonymous, the once-countercultural online hacker collective whose work now tracks closely with the objectives of the CIA. The authors of the proposal to the NSC hinted at the relationship, writing, “Hacking groups such as Anonymous have already begun targeting Russia. This effort could be enlarged and enhanced.”
The Ukrainian cyber army has taken credit for various acts of online vandalism. However, it also appears to have been involved in hacks targeting Russia’s power grids and railways. An attack on Russian taxi service Yandex that caused a large September 2022 traffic jam in Moscow was jointly attributed to both Ukraine’s ‘IT Army’ and Anonymous.
US Army “mad scientist” and self-proclaimed “war doctor in training” Zak Kallenborn
“Modern” IEDs for blowing up Russian infrastructure
The academic cabal’s plans for attacking Russia through unconventional means extended explicitly into the realm of terrorism. A series of detailed recommendations for attacking Russian railway systems and roads with improvised explosive devices was put forward by Zachary Kallenborn, a self-described “PhD Student in War Studies at King’s College London researching risk analysis, perception, management, and theories with topical focuses in global catastrophe, drone warfare, WMD, extreme terrorism, and critical infrastructure.”
“Fuel tanks for diesel locomotives are typically on the bottom, underneath the engine,” Kallenborn wrote. “It wouldn’t be very difficult to plant and disguise small explosives between the wooden slats of the railway then detonate when the locomotive is above it… Ideally, guerrillas operating behind Russian lines would place the anti-locomotive lines.”
Throughout 2023, a group of self-described Russian and Belarussian anarchists conducted a series of attacks on railways, cell towers, and infrastructure inside Russia. Calling themselves BOAK, or the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists, the group of radical saboteurs earned glowing promotion in Western media. It is unclear if it received any outside assistance, however.
Kallenborn’s proposal, drafted in conjunction with the US War Department’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, suggested the US and its allies could “draw upon the lessons they painfully learned in Iraq and Afghanistan to help Ukraine orchestrate an IED campaign behind Russia’s lines.”
With the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents as models, Kallenborn proposed two technologies, “public-private key ring cryptography and ‘smart’ IEDs… to greatly increase the effectiveness of such a campaign.”
To wreak havoc inside Russia, Kallenborn envisioned a modern “stay behind” force similar to those unleashed onto Europe during Cold War era Operation Gladio, when the CIA and NATO organized fascist gangs and mafiosi to conduct anti-communist terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, “smart” IEDs with “modern components” such as “microcontrollers,” which are now “abundant and cheap,” would allow Ukrainian attackers to “exercise additional discretion, reducing potential for collateral damage,” and “detonate the IED regardless of what the targets do.”
“The circuitry of microcontrollers can internalize most of the circuitry that would originally have been hard-wired into IED initiation switches,” Kallenborn wrote. “All microcontrollers have multiple inputs and outputs allowing multiple inputs, all while controlling multiple devices. Because microcontrollers are programmable, attackers can automate complicated algorithms to maximize an IEDs effects, and reduce collateral damage. Microcontrollers can even, relatively easily, circumvent many common countermeasures.”
Secretly employing contractors to pilot drones
While taking inspiration from non-state actors like ISIS and the Taliban, the Western academics plotting on the Ukrainian government’s behalf had elaborate plans for conventional warfare as well.
They assessed that drones had already “proven effective thus far” in the proxy war, so they urged greater deliveries of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2s, which they said were “virtually the only airborne platform with which Ukraine is successfully striking Russian ground forces.” They proposed flooding Kiev with “additional TB2s,” pointing out that since Ukraine was already openly using them, and “had more on order before the conflict began,” Turkey’s role in supplying yet further drones could be concealed, leaving its neutrality publicly intact.
Ankara “could potentially transfer significant numbers of TB2s rapidly” from a variety of sources, the academics assumed, and fly them using local “private sector contractors.” If Turkey was unwilling or unable to go along with this plan, alternatives could be sought. “Given how commonly UCAVs are operated by private sector contractors, these could all be remotely piloted by private sector personnel employed by Ukraine, rather than uniformed members of NATO armed forces,” they noted.
Since drones can be operated “from considerable distances away from the frontline (potentially with pilots operating from neighboring countries),” they offered the further “advantage” over contract pilots, in that they would “be comparatively safe and certainly unlikely to be captured and paraded in front of Russian cameras.” While US-produced unmanned systems such as Predators and Reapers were an option, and could be provided “in large numbers,” they “would appear the most provocative” from Russia’s perspective, and make active US involvement too obvious.
Prophetically, the paper noted Ukraine could be provided instead with “commercial-off-the-shelf drones such as the DJI Mavic and Phantom,” which not only had recording equipment capable of producing “tactically useful intelligence,” but could “be modified to carry explosives.” Moreover, “their wide-spread availability” made “attribution of these platforms to a supplying nation difficult.” It is surely no coincidence that ever since, both drones have been deployed extensively by Kiev to slow Russian advances and swarm military and civilian infrastructure.
By contrast, despite alleged initial successes, Bayraktar TB2s quickly vanished from the skies of Donbass. As several Ukrainian officials have admitted, Russian innovation in air defense and electronic warfare rendered the drones effectively useless. Conversely, the paper noted that while Ukraine’s Air Force was still conducting missions, Kiev would soon “run out of aircraft.” The prescribed remedy was to re-equip the country with Soviet-produced MiG-29 fighters, which “Ukrainian pilots know how to operate” already.
This plan, however, required a number of countries to hand over their ancient fleets of MiG-29s. The academics expressed concern that Central and Eastern European states might be “reticent” due to the risk of “Russian retaliation,” which could be circumvented by “promising gifts” to them, such as weapon upgrades. A year later, in March 2023, Slovakia granted Kiev its entire squadron of thirteen MiG-29s in exchange for a US promise of twelve Bell AH-1Z attack choppers equipped with Hellfire missiles.
Poland initially promised to match Slovakia’s splurge, but only wound up delivering a token amount. The deal has remained on hold since Krakow’s August 2024 announcement that it wouldn’t provide any further MiG-29s until it received a fleet of F-35s, which aren’t expected to arrive until 2026. Peru, likewise tapped by the academics as a potential source for the aircraft, reportedly initially greenlit supply of its MiG-29s to Ukraine, but then reneged. Latin American governments more widely have refused to dispatch any arms whatsoever to Ukraine, despite US pressure.
Air wars waged against Russia by “non-Ukrainian” pilots
Perhaps the most disquieting passage of the document is its last, in which its authors survey historical examples of air forces employing foreign pilots in major conflicts. The paper notes that the aforementioned Flying Tigers “were discharged from the US armed forces” to fight Japan in China, “with the clear understanding that they would be welcomed back thereafter.” Also cited was Finland’s employment of an “entirely” foreign squadron in its 1940 war with Moscow, as well as Zionist settlers’ reliance on an air force “comprised almost entirely of foreign volunteers” during their military campaign against indigenous Palestinian and Arab forces in 1948.
The academics wished to apply these precedents to the Ukraine proxy conflict, creating “volunteer fighter groups today to bolster Ukraine’s air defense” composed of “a reasonable number of Western pilots.” They wrote that these airmen “might volunteer if their national armed forces offered leaves of absence” – as might their civilian counterparts, if US commercial airlines could be “pressured into allowing their pilots, who are fighter-qualified Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard pilots, to take such leaves of absence.” The document boasted that “volunteer fighter groups could substantially disjoint Russia’s air campaign.”
F-16s were considered “the most logical option” due to “the number of NATO members that use F-16s,” including Poland. Accordingly, “Polish spare parts could be trucked into Ukraine comparatively quickly,” with the US “airlifting replacements” to Warsaw. From almost the first day of the proxy war, its most hawkish supporters have demanded that Kiev be provided with these fighter jets, referring to the planes as a “game changer” which would tip the conflict’s scales decisively in favor of Ukraine.
Despite much initial fanfare, when F-16s finally arrived in Kiev in late July of 2024, President Volodomyr Zelensky almost immediately complained the country had only received a handful of jets, and did not have enough pilots trained to fly them. The panic spread to Washington, where Sen. Lindsey Graham publicly urged any “retired F-16 pilot… looking to fight for freedom” to sign up. By the month’s end, the first of F-16s had crashed in uncertain circumstances.
While references to Ukraine’s “game changing” use of F-16s have all but disappeared from the media in the months since, the leaked proposal’s contents raise serious questions how many supposedly Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia were actually perpetrated by Western military operatives, acting at the behest of, and with the material assistance from, NATO and the US.
“Western European and American fighter pilots tend to fly substantially more hours and train more realistically than their Russian or Ukrainian counterparts,” the academics claimed, meaning they were ideal candidates for conducting “combat missions” against Moscow’s positions, forces, and territory. However, the academics cautioned against Western pilots flying close to the frontline, for fear that “foreign volunteers fall into Russian custody, where an example could be made of them, or they could be paraded in front of the camera.” This was perhaps a nod to CIA pilots Gary Powers and Eugene Hassenfus, whose capture by the Soviet Union and Nicaragua, respectively, humiliated US intelligence.
It’s still unclear how much these proposals determined the course of operations by Ukrainian forces against their Russian foes. But the leaks reviewed by The Grayzone reveal for the first time how, in just a matter of weeks, a small cabal of academics secretly furnished some fairly unconventional war plans on a platter for the CIA and MI6.
Just as Britain did with its Project Alchemy, the Biden administration appears to have outsourced responsibility for crafting its battlefield strategy in Ukraine to a nexus of pinheads with dubious backgrounds, situated thousands of miles from the frontline and its gruesome realities. Almost three years later, with a generation of Ukrainians lost to the proxy war’s meat grinder, the authors of these battle plans are likely still pecking away at their laptops somewhere in the musty halls of academia.
Reprinted with permission from The Grayzone.
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