How the United States Special Ops closed the Kyiv Embassy before Russia invasion

Only a few weeks before the launch of its large -scale invasion of Ukraine, a leader in American special operations that Business Insider met last week unexpectedly found the America Embassy in kyiv.

It was an unusual work, for which the colonel of the American army Lucas Vanantwerp, then commander of the 10th group of special forces, had not specifically prepared, but it was the mission.

At the beginning of 2022, the Russian forces surrounded Ukraine, which raised concerns that it planned to launch a large -scale invasion. American information had assessed that Russia had moved military equipment and soldiers to the borders along Ukraine, and the Ukrainians were preparing troops and civilians for an attack.

Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, bombing Ukraine and launching assaults quickly aimed at grasping kyiv.

Having the embassy falls in the first days before the start of the invasion of Russia was not as simple as turning off the lights and locking the doors. Vantwerp and his team had to destroy all the sensitive information to prevent him from falling into the hands of the Russian army.

“There is a part of you at the time that is,” I don’t really know what I do “,” Vantwerp, now director of the management of the capacity of the US army special operations command, BI told the exercise of the USASOC capacities last week at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Vantwerp received the call at the beginning of 2022 to mix its kyiv forces. At that time, he and his team resumed the security of the embassy.

He said that the 10th special forces group had built confidence with the Ukrainian army after working for a long time with its operators since the initial invasion of Russia in 2014.

The objective of the American advisers of special operations stationed in the country was to help Ukrainian operators detach themselves from their Soviet style approaches and to adopt Methods more Western style, modifying the way in which the individual soldier and the non -communicated critical agent make decisions on the battlefield.

“I’m not going to say that we have transformed everything,” said Vantwerp, but “he was a great contributor to the way they thought and how their sofa worked.”

The authorized non-commissioned non-commissioned officers have given Ukraine a fight and a flexibility of decision-making which is very different from the descending approach of Russia which requires generals for the decision-making of the battlefield, keeping them near the front lines.

When it was time to evacuate the embassy and close it, Vanantwerp received the call because of the relationship that he and his team had cultivated in Ukraine. The staff of the embassy was transferred to Lviv, then the 10th leader of the special forces group and his team moved to security and began to disinfect the diplomatic outpost.

With an invasion that is looming, the quantity of potentially sensitive materials in the embassy which was to be removed quickly was large. The servers and computers were destroyed and the personal effects of the workers were thrown.

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This particular experience, said Vantwerp, was strange “because you are still sitting there seeing photos of people from people on their cabins, photos of people of people”.

When they wrapped, the office looked normal but empty.

Once the embassy has been cleared, the team was out and looked at the American flag descend. “It was probably one of the most difficult moments of my military career, standing while looking at this happening,” he said.

Despite the unusual nature of this particular work, VanantWerp explained that it is often typical for special forces to fulfill roles which are sometimes out of the ordinary, in particular because of the relations that operators establish with partners and allies.

It is a key aspect of the role of SOF in the American army, especially since it passes decades by focusing on the fight against terrorism and counter-lines in high power competition, with American rivals like China and the Spirit of Russia.

Various SOF leaders have stressed that the presence of operators around the world and the relationships they have established are essential to success.

Vantwerp noted the importance of the partnership between the United States and Ukraine, as well as between the United States and Europe as a whole.

“We are able to link all this with a very small footprint, a small signature,” he said, “and everything is really based on relationships.”