The Grayzone reveals that British military intelligence freelancers drafted the details a few months back for the Kerch bridge attack that occurred on Sunday, July 17, that left 2 civilians dead and a 14-year-old girl wounded. 

The details were drawn up by Chris Donnelly, a senior intelligence operative and former high-ranking NATO advisor. His transnational connections manage the UK's contribution to the proxy war with the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) Odessa branch.

In the first Kerch bombing in October 2022, Ukraine was celebrating but quickly backtracked and claimed it was a Russian false flag. This May, SBU chief Vasyl Maliuk admitted his agency carried out “certain measures” for the attack, by coercing an innocent truck driver into serving as a suicide bomber.

In the explosion that happened on Sunday, the SBU seems to have resorted to unmanned submarines to target Kerch Bridge, and a review of leaked files previously revealed by The Grayzone points once again to Donnelly's secret faction.

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These files demonstrate Prevail Partners as the cutout responsible for training a secret Ukrainian partisan army to target Russian territory. Prevail vowed to provide the SBU with extensive targeting expertise and technology to target Crimea and particularly, the Kerch Bridge.

'Crimea-management company'

From the view of Donnelly’s intelligence faction, the Odessa branch of the Ukrainian SBU Security Service was perfect to target Crimea. The unit, located just over the Black Sea and filled with Maidan operatives, signed a “technical support” agreement with Prevail and Thomas in Winslow (TIW) which is a self-described “crisis management company”.

A "capacity assessment” of the Security Service’s capabilities was conducted under the agreement by Prevail and TIW. The findings were then revealed to “secure programmatic funding from the international community or donor countries" - which would include services such as training the underground army to attack Crimea.

As part of the assessment, representatives of the British Prevail and TIW met secretly in person with the Odessa SBU’s deputy director, centering “heavily on targeting and specialist capability to support that function.”

Prevail and TIW felt that a "huge benefit” could be given to the SBU’s existing human intelligence and electronic data capture capabilities, given their “collective experience in targeting the adversary” which in turn would generate “confirmative/actionable intelligence" such as both covert and overt ops. 

According to the proposal, the SBU must be taught how to “monitor coastline and Russian movement” with surveillance drones and must be given access to satellite imagery to facilitate targeting in military and black operations. This, a UK operative said, would “go a long way". It would also be instructed on how to “exploit encrypted data” on digital devices appropriated from captured or killed Russian soldiers.

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The proposal concluded that to bring Prevail and TIW’s skills and technologies in-house, Odessa SBU reps “understand that with capability comes a training burden, and the need to have dedicated mentors/advisors inside their tent.”

A Prevail staffer said that “they seemed impressed by our willingness to establish a presence with them – support and mentorship – boots on the ground.”

The assessment’s introduction noted that “not all points” from the Security Service’s “original ask” were discussed. What this “ask” may have entailed could be provided by a presentation called “Kerch Bridge info pack.” It was prepared by a “geospatial intelligence” specialist the same day that Prevail issued its letter of intent to Ukraine in April 2022. 

Using the Beirut blast as a model

The proposal includes ways in which the Kerch Bridge attack can take place. One plot circulated on detonating a vessel containing ammonia nitrate under the bridge. The August 2020 blast in Beirut that left 214 people dead, was approved to be used as an example. 

Last month June, CIA Director William Burns traveled to Ukraine to review a so-called “victory plan” by the country’s military and intel, in which a major part included “holding hostage” the population of Crimea - three weeks later, Ukraine attacked Kerch Bridge for the second time.

Kerch Bridge is a passage for thousands of civilians, so killing innocent people while leaving Russian forces uninjured, poses the question of whether Ukraine's attempts to destroy the bridge amount to war crimes - and Western media continues to shy away. 

Read more: Ukrainian media: Ukraine SBU behind Crimea 'incident'

The leaked files exposed by The Grayzone demonstrate that Prevail and TIW could have given Odessa SBU aid in identifying and locating suspects, and possibly in Ukraine’s violent political purge.

A UN Human Rights High Commissioner report documented the number of individuals suspected of collaboration who have been subject to arbitrary detention and brutal torture. Recorded by the UN, “enhanced” interrogation methods involved beatings, electrocution, sexual violence, forced nudity, threats of genital mutilation and rape against detainees and their families, threats of execution, loaded guns, and of being brought to the front line, and abandoned there.

As a result, serious concern was expressed by the OHCHR regarding the Ukrainian law criminalizing “collaboration activities” not defining what these activities are “or other important terms with sufficient precision so as to enable individuals to regulate their conduct and reasonably foresee the legal consequences of their actions or inaction.”

The total murder of collaborators was absent from the report. Even though Western media continuously cheers and praises the murders, TikTok videos by Ukrainian soldiers documenting captures of suspects, their murders, Ukrainian officials openly praising the savage state-directed hit squads in formerly Russian-occupied territory, and the overtly promoted acts of sadistic violence went over the heads' of OHCHR investigators.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, said back in October 2022: "A hunt has been declared on collaborators and their life is not protected by law,” adding: “Our intelligence services are eliminating them, shooting them like pigs.”

An Interpol affair 

Records of the meeting between Prevail, TIW,  and the Odessa SBU’s deputy director heavily suggest the aforementioned. The agency already considered movements and statements of the city’s “pro-Russian contingent” to be a “top priority” although its effectiveness proves otherwise. 

The file reads: “Tracking and monitoring of devices played a key role in the conversation. [Odessa SBU] have existing methods and capability to track phones but highlighted that they had no way to identify users. They mentioned that their capability often tracked Russian phones which led them to legitimate civilians. This is an area we can support. We discussed…alternate methods to track and monitor such as app-based technology, and they were visibly impressed and excited at the prospect.”

The “app-based technology” referred to in the file was Anomaly 6’s illegitimate global surveillance dragnet. According to the leaked documents, the dragnet is used for targeting by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Grayzone reports that Anomaly’s smartphone spying technology is far from the precision marketed by the company. 

The risk of systemic errors that brand innocent civilians as Russian collaborators could pave the way for the arrest and extradition of Ukrainian refugees in Europe, considering the fact that Ukraine is in cahoots with Interpol to locate suspected collaborators who ran off to the European Union.