WTAF? Did you not read the article? Those bases were set up to conduct an aggressive covert war against Russia. They trained Ukrainian ASSASSINS to kill Russians and carry out sabotage and other aggressive covert activities.

"One day after Kondratiuk was removed, a mysterious explosion in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, ripped through an elevator carrying a senior Russian separatist commander named Arsen Pavlov, known by his nom de guerre, Motorola.

"The CIA soon learned that the assassins were members of the Fifth Directorate, the spy group that received CIA training. Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency had even handed out commemorative patches to those involved, each one stitched with the word “Lift,” the British term for an elevator.

"Again, some of Obama’s advisers were furious, but they were lame ducks — the presidential election pitting Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton was three weeks away — and the assassinations continued."