Over the weekend the New York Times published an epic exposé. "The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin," by Adam Entous and Mitchell Schwirtz, described a decade of CIA-Ukrainian cooperation, featuring details that would never reach public ears under normal circumstances. The opening is worth quoting at length:

Nestled in a dense forest, the Ukrainian military base appears abandoned and destroyed…But that is above ground. Not far away, a discreet passageway descends to a subterranean bunker where teams of Ukrainian soldiers track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between Russian commanders…

The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border.

Yowza! Officials have long scolded the public that even minor disclosures of "sources and methods" could "risk lives" and must be prevented at all costs. Yet here comes the Times, helping "current and former officials in Ukraine, the United States and Europe" blab a long list of extraordinary details, down to the number of CIA-supported secret bases along the Russian border. An abridged list of revelations:

CIA director William Burns made a "secret" visit to Ukraine last Thursday, his tenth since Russia's invasion;

On the night of February 14, 2014, in the middle of the Maidan coup, Ukrainian spy chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko called the heads of the CIA and Britain's MI6 and asked for help in rebuilding his agency "from the ground up";

Ukrainian intelligence officials, seeking to prove their value to American counterparts, handed the CIA proof that Russian separatists downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 "within hours of the crash" in July of 2014;