Project AERODYNAMIC (1949-1970) was a CIA operation initiated to support Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Soviet insurgents with funding, training, and equipment.[1][2][3][4] It was preceded indirectly by REDSOX operations (1949-1953) and directly by Project ANDROGEN, later CARTEL. AERODYNAMIC was renewed as PDDYNAMIC in 1974 and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It had conditional support of German (SS) as well as full support of British intelligence (MI6).
Background[edit | edit source]
In 1949 the CIA's Foreign Division S, which was responsible for all CIA operations in the Soviet Union, began airdropping Ukrainian agents into Ukraine in order to establish contact with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in what came to be a series of operations known as REDSOX. This operation, based in Munich, expanded operative airdrops to Belorussia, Latvia, Lithuania, and other Soviet satellites, but ended after "at least 75 percent of the 85 agents dispatched under REDSOX disappeared from sight and failed in their missions." The CIA base in Munich was used to house and train these couriers, called APOSTLES. Eventually, the ANDROGEN project became Project CARTEL, the direct precursor to Project AERODYNAMIC. Project CARTEL consisted of the same personnel as ANDROGEN. The case officer who founded CARTEL provided radio and cipher training to the Ukrainian nationalists, as well as "mission personnel and equipment... to Ukraine in an unmarked American aircraft." At the same time, the CIA began funding the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR) and compensating funds that were confiscated while crossing into occupied Germany.[5] From 1949 until 1991, via CIA funding, Ukrainians who were relocated to the United States (including OUN-B leader Mykola Lebed) published multiple anti-Soviet propaganda publications based in New York. The relocation of Ukrainian nationalists and de facto pardoning of their crimes during and after WWII was dubbed Operation BELLADONNA.