We've had reporting about how involved the CIA was in Ukraine from 2014 onwards (eg, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/23/ukraine-cia-...). I was thinking about that when I wrote it.

It looks a lot like they've set up a puppet government in Ukraine, it seems a bit incredible that level of trust just developed out of the blue after Euromaidan. And the CIA would have been almost negligent not to be involved in managing the Euromaidan. It'd line up well with the leaked recordings of Victoria Nuland discussing who should be in government, the relatively suicidal stance Ukraine then took towards diplomacy with Russia and just be in character for the CIA.

I'd imagine the Belarusian government would look at that and much rather be using Huawei tech then Cisco. The risks are pretty obvious and one sided. And I doubt Ukraine is the only place the CIA have been moving in to in the east; any government in the region should be worried about US involvement in their politics.