Battlefield Ukraine

Prisoners of War

Ambassador Rice felt like the situation in Ukraine was starting to spiral out of control as he read the latest intelligence summaries provided to him by US European Command and the State Department’s own intelligence group. After a rough first couple of weeks of this new military operation, the CIA decided that they wanted to get more involved in helping the Ukrainians eliminate some of the separatist air defense vehicles. “The Agency” had been monitoring the enemy air defense units since the start of the Ukrainian operation, so once they received the go-ahead to work directly with Ukrainian Special Forces to take them out, they executed a mission with one of their Special Operations Group teams.

The covert operation took place the night before. It had not gone well. Two CIA SOG units, in cooperation with a Ukrainian Special Forces, attempted to destroy four of the separatist SA-17 “Buk” air defense vehicles and three of the SA-19 Grisons. The first team succeeded in destroying two of the vehicles without losing a single SOG member. The second SOG team, however, was not so lucky. They were ambushed by what the CIA believed was a well-coordinated and pre-planned trap. Two of the four CIA men were killed, and the other two had been captured. The entire Ukrainian Special Forces team had been killed in the ambush.

Now, two Americans were being held captive by the separatist group, who was demanding the withdrawal of American military advisors from Ukraine. The Russians also took to the airwaves, announcing, “If NATO and the Americans are no longer going to remain neutral, then neither are we.”

After finishing reading the report, Ambassador Rice looked up at General Luka and John Williams, his Chief of Station. “Well, you gentlemen pushed for a military operation several months ago. So, what are your recommendations now that two Americans have been captured?” The left side of his lip snarled up in disgust.

General Luka sighed, but he remained determined that it was the right decision to move forward with a military option. “Ambassador, there are always going to be miscues and setbacks in any military operation. The Ukrainians have strengthened their hold and position on the separatist territory since the start of this operation. They have also seriously degraded their ability to continue to hold onto the cities. Despite the losses, they are accomplishing the stated goals. At this current rate of engagement, the separatists are nearly broken as a fighting force. They have sustained heavy casualty rates and equipment losses, far more than the Ukrainian army has. We need to continue to stay the course.”

John Williams added, “Putting the military objectives aside, we have people being held captive right now and we need to get them back. Our surveillance has identified the safehouse they are holding our guys in.”

“What? How?” asked Ambassador Rice, incredulous.

“They keep moving our men every couple of hours, but we placed an isotope tracker in all of our personnel operating in Ukraine, in case they were ever kidnapped. We can track them fairly easily,” explained John.

Duncan’s eyebrows revealed his surprise.

Stopping only to take a drink from his water bottle, Williams continued, “Before coming over here, we intercepted two messages. One communique was between the Russian paramilitary units and the separatists, ordering them to bring the Americans to a specific compound immediately. This was about two hours ago. The second communique we intercepted was between Russian military headquarters in Moscow and a Spetsnaz unit operating near the Ukrainian/Russian border. They are going to escort the Americans across the Russian border in two days to be brought back to Moscow for further questioning.” The CIA man clenched his fists at the thought of his men being held in a gulag.

Looking at General Luka, and then back to the Ambassador, John continued, “I’ve spoken with Major General Lansing from JSOC, and we have a Delta team that just arrived in country that can execute their recovery.”

General Luka nodded in agreement. “We need to move fast on this then, Ambassador. We need to get our guys back before they are moved across the border. Once that happens, I have no idea what will happen to them.”

Ambassador Rice looked at them incredulously. “You realize they are being guarded by Russian Spetsnaz, right? How do you propose getting them back?”

John explained, “We get them back by sending a Delta team in to kill everyone there and recover our people. We don’t just leave them to rot or be tortured by the Russians.” There was a hint of sarcasm to his tone; he was surprised that the Ambassador would be so daft as to not know how this was going to turn out.

“You understand that you will be facing actual Russian soldiers. This could spiral things out of control quickly is all I am saying. We need to proceed with caution,” Rice responded, hoping to get these two hot heads to realize how quickly things could become worse.

General Luka saw the Ambassador was not comfortable with this option, and in his head, he suddenly pictured the Ambassador going above their heads and fouling up the entire mission as he tried to “negotiate” for their release. “Ambassador Rice, I know you are nervous about the situation getting carried away, and that is a valid concern. However, we cannot allow two of our men to remain captive. They know too much and are too valuable for us to leave them. It also sets a bad precedent that if we are not willing to come for them, we might not come for others. That is not something we can allow to happen.”

The Ambassador sighed.

Luka continued, “We are coordinating this with SOCEUR and JSOC. We have additional assets being moved into the area as we speak. Everything is already underway. We are bringing you into the loop now, but the decision has already been made by the National Security Advisor, SOCEUR, and JSOC to get our people back. We’ve lost fifteen guys… we are going to show these separatists what happens when they test the might of the American military. I assure you, this will not turn out like past operations with the Ukrainians. This will be an American operation all the way through.”

The Ambassador sat back in his chair feeling defeated and blindsided. The military had been pushing for confrontation from the beginning, but at least they had been keeping him informed of what was going on. Now it seemed like they were maneuvering behind his back. “Don’t they realize these actions are going to have long-term consequences?” he thought.