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Fact check

Is it true: Operation Aerodynamic / CIA Ukrainian émigré program (1949-90s)?

Confirmed4% confidence

Yes — this is confirmed.

Operation Aerodynamic is confirmed by declassified National Security Archive documents (2007 release) and CIA historical records. The programme funded ZP-UHVR and Prolog Research Corp to conduct psychological warfare against the Soviet Union from 1949 into the 1990s. Key figure Mykola Lebed's OUN-B wartime record — including association with WWII atrocities — was documented in CIA files that were managed during his US naturalisation process. IRR Lebed file released following NYT reporting (Blumenthal, 2010); further documented by Eric Lichtblau (2014).

The claim

Operation Aerodynamic was a CIA covert programme that funded and directed Ukrainian émigré networks — principally the ZP-UHVR (Foreign Representation of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council) and i

Key evidence

National Security Archive declassified Aerodynamic reports — 2007

Paramilitary infiltration attempts largely unsuccessful

Read the full evidence file

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