Did Ukraine run a sting operation on the US to figure out how info was leaking to Russia?
Executive summary
No credible evidence supports the headline claim that Ukraine deliberately ran a “sting” on U.S. intelligence by feeding false information to see whether it would be passed to Russia; the allegation traces to a contested interview with former French DGSE officer Vincent Crouzet and has been disputed and fact‑checked by multiple outlets and Ukrainian authorities [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. Origin of the claim: a TV interview and social amplification
The allegation began with remarks by Vincent Crouzet, a former DGSE operative, in a French television clip that was widely reposted online; some summaries paraphrased his comments as saying Ukraine had deliberately supplied false strategic intelligence to the United States which then reached Russia, and those summaries quickly spread on social platforms and fringe sites [1] [6] [7].
2. What Crouzet actually said — and then clarified
Close reading and follow‑ups show Crouzet spoke about Ukrainian suspicions of leaks from U.S. partners and a decision by Kyiv to curb intelligence sharing because of leak concerns; when challenged, Crouzet posted a clarification saying he had described Ukrainians “suspecting risks” of U.S. leaks, not asserting a deliberate Ukrainian operation to feed false information [2] [4] [3].
3. Independent fact‑checks and Ukrainian denials
Major fact‑checkers and newsrooms that reviewed the clip and the social posts concluded the stronger claim — that Ukraine ran a sting by intentionally giving false intelligence to U.S. services which then ended up benefiting Russia — is unsupported and in some cases demonstrably false; outlets including Lead Stories/Yahoo, Snopes, Kyiv Post and others found no evidence that the LCI segment made that assertion and reported Kyiv’s agencies and Ukrainian media rejecting the fabricated version circulating online [3] [8] [9] [5].
4. Where the narrative filled the evidentiary gap
The story filled an evidentiary vacuum by meshing two separate facts: real concern in Kyiv about leaks to Moscow (a pattern noted since earlier leak episodes) and an on‑air comment by a former intelligence officer; social media framing transformed suspicion into a definitive claim of a deliberate sting, a classic leap from anecdote to assertion without verification [2] [10].
5. Motives, agendas and information operations to watch for
The rapid spread of the stronger claim benefited actors seeking to amplify distrust between allies or to discredit Ukraine’s partners; Ukrainian official channels explicitly called out fake narratives and Kremlin bot farms have a documented history of amplifying similar stories, so information‑operation incentives and social‑media economics are relevant to why the false framing propagated [5] [6].
6. What is proven and what remains unknown
It is proven that Crouzet made public remarks about Ukrainian distrust of U.S. handling of intelligence and that social posts misrepresented those remarks as describing a deliberate Ukrainian sting [2] [3]. What is not proven by available reporting is any documented instance in which Ukrainian services intentionally fed false operational intelligence to U.S. agencies as a test and then observed Russian use of that information; no sourcing or documentary evidence for such an operation has been produced in the reporting reviewed [1] [7] [4].
7. Bottom line answer
Given the primary sources, the clarifications from the speaker, denials and fact‑checks from multiple outlets, and the absence of verifiable evidence, the claim that Ukraine ran a sting operation on the U.S. to detect leaks to Russia is unsubstantiated and appears to be a mischaracterization or amplification of Ukrainian concerns about leaks rather than a documented covert operation [3] [2] [8] [5].