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The Postil Magazine

Uniting Wisdom With The Soul – Viv id a Vis A nimi
 "Capitulation," by Petr Krivonogov, 1946.

The Military Situation In The Ukraine

April 1, 2022 Jacques Baud


Part One: The Road To War
For years, from Mali to Afghanistan, I have worked for peace and
risked my life for it. It is therefore not a question of justifying war,
but of understanding what led us to it. I notice that the “experts” who
take turns on television analyze the situation on the basis of dubious
information, most often hypotheses erected as facts—and then we no
longer manage to understand what is happening. This is how panics
are created.

The problem is not so much to know who is right in this conflict, but
to question the way our leaders make their decisions.

Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who
for the last eight years have been talking about “separatists” or
“independentists” from Donbass. This is not true. The referendums
conducted by the two self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and
Lugansk in May 2014, were not referendums of “independence”
(независимость), as some unscrupulous journalists have claimed, but
referendums of “self-determination” or “autonomy”
(самостоятельность). The qualifier “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia
was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term
“Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these
referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.

In fact, these Republics were not seeking to separate from Ukraine,

but to have a status of autonomy, guaranteeing them the use of the
Russian language as an official language. For the first legislative act of
the new government resulting from the overthrow of President
Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-
Kolesnichenko law of 2012 that made Russian an official language. A
bit like if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer
be official languages in Switzerland.

This decision caused a storm in the Russian-speaking population.

The result was a fierce repression against the Russian-speaking
regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk)
which was carried out beginning in February 2014 and led to a
militarization of the situation and some massacres (in Odessa and
Marioupol, for the most notable). At the end of summer 2014, only
the self-proclaimed Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained.

At this stage, too rigid and engrossed in a doctrinaire approach to the

art of operations, the Ukrainian general staff subdued the enemy
without managing to prevail. The examination of the course of the
fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbass shows that the Ukrainian
general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same
operative schemes. However, the war waged by the autonomists was
very similar to what we observed in the Sahel: highly mobile
operations conducted with light means. With a more flexible and less
doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of
Ukrainian forces to repeatedly “trap” them.

In 2014, when I was at NATO, I was responsible for the fight against
the proliferation of small arms, and we were trying to detect Russian
arms deliveries to the rebels, to see if Moscow was involved. The
information we received then came almost entirely from Polish
intelligence services and did not “fit” with the information coming
from the OSCE—despite rather crude allegations, there were no
deliveries of weapons and military equipment from Russia.

The rebels were armed thanks to the defection of Russian-speaking

Ukrainian units that went over to the rebel side. As Ukrainian failures
continued, tank, artillery and anti-aircraft battalions swelled the
ranks of the autonomists. This is what pushed the Ukrainians to
commit to the Minsk Agreements.

But just after signing the Minsk 1 Agreements, the Ukrainian

President Petro Poroshenko launched a massive anti-terrorist
operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against the Donbass. Bis
repetita placent: poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians
suffered a crushing defeat in Debaltsevo, which forced them to
engage in the Minsk 2 Agreements.
It is essential to recall here that Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk
2 (February 2015) Agreements did not provide for the separation or
independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the
framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Agreements (there
are very, very, very few of those who actually have) will note that it is
written in all letters that the status of the Republics was to be
negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the Republics, for
an internal solution to the Ukraine.

That is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded their

implementation while refusing to be a party to the negotiations,
because it was an internal matter of the Ukraine. On the other side,
the West—led by France—systematically tried to replace the Minsk
Agreements with the “Normandy format,” which put Russians and
Ukrainians face-to-face. However, let us remember that there were
never any Russian troops in the Donbass before 23-24 February
2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest
trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass. For example, the
U.S. intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December
3, 2021 does not show Russian troops in the Donbass.

In October 2015, Vasyl Hrytsak, director of the Ukrainian Security

Service (SBU), confessed that only 56 Russian fighters had been
observed in the Donbass. This was exactly comparable to the Swiss
who went to fight in Bosnia on weekends, in the 1990s, or the French
who go to fight in the Ukraine today.

The Ukrainian army was then in a deplorable state. In October 2018,

after four years of war, the chief Ukrainian military prosecutor,
Anatoly Matios, stated that Ukraine had lost 2,700 men in the
Donbass: 891 from illnesses, 318 from road accidents, 177 from other
accidents, 175 from poisonings (alcohol, drugs), 172 from careless
handling of weapons, 101 from breaches of security regulations, 228
from murders and 615 from suicides.
In fact, the army was undermined by the corruption of its cadres and
no longer enjoyed the support of the population. According to a
British Home Office report, in the March/April 2014 recall of
reservists, 70 percent did not show up for the first session, 80 percent
for the second, 90 percent for the third, and 95 percent for the
fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of conscripts did not show
up for the “Fall 2017” recall campaign. This is not counting suicides
and desertions (often over to the autonomists), which reached up to
30 percent of the workforce in the ATO area. Young Ukrainians
refused to go and fight in the Donbass and preferred emigration,
which also explains, at least partially, the demographic deficit of the
country.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense then turned to NATO to help

make its armed forces more “attractive.” Having already worked on
similar projects within the framework of the United Nations, I was
asked by NATO to participate in a program to restore the image of
the Ukrainian armed forces. But this is a long-term process and the
Ukrainians wanted to move quickly.

So, to compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Ukrainian government

resorted to paramilitary militias. They are essentially composed of
foreign mercenaries, often extreme right-wing militants. In 2020,
they constituted about 40 percent of the Ukrainian forces and
numbered about 102,000 men, according to Reuters. They were
armed, financed and trained by the United States, Great Britain,
Canada and France. There were more than 19 nationalities—
including Swiss.

Western countries have thus clearly created and supported Ukrainian

far-right militias. In October 2021, the Jerusalem Post sounded the
alarm by denouncing the Centuria project. These militias had been
operating in the Donbass since 2014, with Western support. Even if
one can argue about the term “Nazi,” the fact remains that these
militias are violent, convey a nauseating ideology and are virulently
anti-Semitic. Their anti-Semitism is more cultural than political,
which is why the term “Nazi” is not really appropriate. Their hatred
of the Jew stems from the great famines of the 1920s and 1930s in the
Ukraine, resulting from Stalin’s confiscation of crops to finance the
modernization of the Red Army. This genocide—known in the
Ukraine as the Holodomor—was perpetrated by the NKVD (the
forerunner of the KGB), whose upper echelons of leadership were
mainly composed of Jews. This is why, today, Ukrainian extremists
are asking Israel to apologize for the crimes of communism, as the
Jerusalem Post notes. This is a far cry from Vladimir Putin’s “rewriting
of history.”

These militias, originating from the far-right groups that animated

the Euromaidan revolution in 2014, are composed of fanatical and
brutal individuals. The best known of these is the Azov Regiment,
whose emblem is reminiscent of the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer
Division, which is revered in the Ukraine for liberating Kharkov from
the Soviets in 1943, before carrying out the 1944 Oradour-sur-Glane
massacre in France.

Among the famous figures of the Azov regiment was the opponent
Roman Protassevitch, arrested in 2021 by the Belarusian authorities
following the case of RyanAir flight FR4978. On May 23, 2021, the
deliberate hijacking of an airliner by a MiG-29—supposedly with
Putin’s approval—was mentioned as a reason for arresting
Protassevich, although the information available at the time did not
confirm this scenario at all.

But then it was necessary to show that President Lukashenko was a

thug and Protassevich a “journalist” who loved democracy. However,
a rather revealing investigation produced by an American NGO in
2020 highlighted Protassevitch’s far-right militant activities. The
Western conspiracy movement then started, and unscrupulous
media “air-brushed” his biography. Finally, in January 2022, the
ICAO report was published and showed that despite some procedural
errors, Belarus acted in accordance with the rules in force and that
the MiG-29 took off 15 minutes after the RyanAir pilot decided to
land in Minsk. So no Belarusian plot and even less Putin. Ah!…
Another detail: Protassevitch, cruelly tortured by the Belarusian
police, was now free. Those who would like to correspond with him,
can go on his Twitter account.

The characterization of the Ukrainian paramilitaries as “Nazis” or

“neo-Nazis” is considered Russian propaganda. Perhaps. But that’s
not the view of the Times of Israel, the Simon Wiesenthal Center or
the West Point Academy’s Center for Counterterrorism. But that’s
still debatable, because in 2014, Newsweek magazine seemed to
associate them more with… the Islamic State. Take your pick!

So, the West supported and continued to arm militias that have been
guilty of numerous crimes against civilian populations since 2014:
rape, torture and massacres. But while the Swiss government has
been very quick to take sanctions against Russia, it has not adopted
any against the Ukraine, which has been massacring its own
population since 2014. In fact, those who defend human rights in the
Ukraine have long condemned the actions of these groups, but have
not been supported by our governments. Because, in reality, we are
not trying to help the Ukraine, but to fight Russia.

The integration of these paramilitary forces into the National Guard

was not at all accompanied by a “denazification,” as some claim.
Among the many examples, that of the Azov Regiment’s insignia is
instructive:
In 2022, very schematically, the Ukrainian armed forces fighting the
Russian offensive were organized as:

The Army, subordinated to the Ministry of Defense. It is organized

into 3 army corps and composed of maneuver formations (tanks,
heavy artillery, missiles, etc.).
The National Guard, which depends on the Ministry of the Interior
and is organized into 5 territorial commands.

The National Guard is therefore a territorial defense force that is not

part of the Ukrainian army. It includes paramilitary militias, called
“volunteer battalions” (добровольчі батальйоні), also known by the
evocative name of “reprisal battalions,” and composed of infantry.
Primarily trained for urban combat, they now defend cities such as
Kharkov, Mariupol, Odessa, Kiev, etc.

Part Two: The War

As a former head of the Warsaw Pact forces in the Swiss strategic

intelligence service, I observe with sadness—but not astonishment—
that our services are no longer able to understand the military
situation in Ukraine. The self-proclaimed “experts” who parade on
our screens tirelessly relay the same information modulated by the
claim that Russia—and Vladimir Putin—is irrational. Let’s take a step
back.
1. The Outbreak Of War

Since November 2021, the Americans have been constantly

threatening a Russian invasion of the Ukraine. However, the
Ukrainians did not seem to agree. Why not?

We have to go back to March 24, 2021. On that day, Volodymyr

Zelensky issued a decree for the recapture of the Crimea, and began
to deploy his forces to the south of the country. At the same time,
several NATO exercises were conducted between the Black Sea and
the Baltic Sea, accompanied by a significant increase in
reconnaissance flights along the Russian border. Russia then
conducted several exercises to test the operational readiness of its
troops and to show that it was following the evolution of the
situation.

Things calmed down until October-November with the end of the

ZAPAD 21 exercises, whose troop movements were interpreted as a
reinforcement for an offensive against the Ukraine. However, even
the Ukrainian authorities refuted the idea of Russian preparations for
a war, and Oleksiy Reznikov, Ukrainian Minister of Defense, states
that there had been no change on its border since the spring.

In violation of the Minsk Agreements, the Ukraine was conducting air

operations in Donbass using drones, including at least one strike
against a fuel depot in Donetsk in October 2021. The American press
noted this, but not the Europeans; and no one condemned these
violations.

In February 2022, events were precipitated. On February 7, during

his visit to Moscow, Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed to Vladimir Putin
his commitment to the Minsk Agreements, a commitment he would
repeat after his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky the next day. But
on February 11, in Berlin, after nine hours of work, the meeting of
political advisors of the leaders of the “Normandy format” ended,
without any concrete result: the Ukrainians still refused to apply the
Minsk Agreements, apparently under pressure from the United
States. Vladimir Putin noted that Macron had made empty promises
and that the West was not ready to enforce the agreements, as it had
been doing for eight years.

Ukrainian preparations in the contact zone continued. The Russian

Parliament became alarmed; and on February 15 asked Vladimir
Putin to recognize the independence of the Republics, which he
refused to do.

On 11th February, President Joe Biden announced that Russia would

attack the Ukraine in the next few days. How did he know this? It is a
mystery. But since the 16th, the artillery shelling of the population of
Donbass increased dramatically, as the daily reports of the OSCE
observers show. Naturally, neither the media, nor the European
Union, nor NATO, nor any Western government reacts or intervenes.
It will be said later that this is Russian disinformation. In fact, it
seems that the European Union and some countries have deliberately
kept silent about the massacre of the Donbass population, knowing
that this would provoke a Russian intervention.

At the same time, there were reports of sabotage in the Donbass. On

18 January, Donbass fighters intercepted saboteurs, who spoke Polish
and were equipped with Western equipment and who were seeking
to create chemical incidents in Gorlivka. They could have been CIA
mercenaries, led or “advised” by Americans and composed of
Ukrainian or European fighters, to carry out sabotage actions in the
Donbass Republics.
In fact, as early as February 16, Joe Biden knew that the Ukrainians
had begun shelling the civilian population of Donbass, putting
Vladimir Putin in front of a difficult choice: to help Donbass
militarily and create an international problem, or to stand by and
watch the Russian-speaking people of Donbass being crushed.

If he decided to intervene, Putin could invoke the international

obligation of “Responsibility To Protect” (R2P). But he knew that
whatever its nature or scale, the intervention would trigger a storm of
sanctions. Therefore, whether Russian intervention were limited to
the Donbass or went further to put pressure on the West for the
status of the Ukraine, the price to pay would be the same. This is
what he explained in his speech on February 21.

On that day, he agreed to the request of the Duma and recognized

the independence of the two Donbass Republics and, at the same
time, he signed friendship and assistance treaties with them.

The Ukrainian artillery bombardment of the Donbass population

continued, and, on 23 February, the two Republics asked for military
assistance from Russia. On 24 February, Vladimir Putin invoked
Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, which provides for mutual
military assistance in the framework of a defensive alliance.

In order to make the Russian intervention totally illegal in the eyes of

the public we deliberately hid the fact that the war actually started on
February 16. The Ukrainian army was preparing to attack the
Donbass as early as 2021, as some Russian and European intelligence
services were well aware. Jurists will judge.

In his speech of February 24, Vladimir Putin stated the two objectives
of his operation: “demilitarize” and “denazify” the Ukraine. So, it is
not a question of taking over the Ukraine, nor even, presumably, of
occupying it; and certainly not of destroying it.

From then on, our visibility on the course of the operation is limited:
the Russians have an excellent security of operations (OPSEC) and
the details of their planning are not known. But fairly quickly, the
course of the operation allows us to understand how the strategic
objectives were translated on the operational level.
Demilitarization:

ground destruction of Ukrainian aviation, air defense systems and

reconnaissance assets;
neutralization of command and intelligence structures (C3I), as
well as the main logistical routes in the depth of the territory;
encirclement of the bulk of the Ukrainian army massed in the
southeast of the country.

Denazification:

destruction or neutralization of volunteer battalions operating in

the cities of Odessa, Kharkov, and Mariupol, as well as in various
facilities in the territory.

2. Demilitarization

The Russian offensive was carried out in a very “classic” manner.

Initially—as the Israelis had done in 1967—with the destruction on
the ground of the air force in the very first hours. Then, we witnessed
a simultaneous progression along several axes according to the
principle of “flowing water”: advance everywhere where resistance
was weak and leave the cities (very demanding in terms of troops) for
later. In the north, the Chernobyl power plant was occupied
immediately to prevent acts of sabotage. The images of Ukrainian
and Russian soldiers guarding the plant together are of course not
shown.

The idea that Russia is trying to take over Kiev, the capital, to
eliminate Zelensky, comes typically from the West—that is what they
did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and what they wanted to do in Syria
with the help of the Islamic State. But Vladimir Putin never intended
to shoot or topple Zelensky. Instead, Russia seeks to keep him in
power by pushing him to negotiate, by surrounding Kiev. Up till now,
he had refused to implement the Minsk Agreements. But now the
Russians want to obtain the neutrality of the Ukraine.
Many Western commentators were surprised that the Russians
continued to seek a negotiated solution while conducting military
operations. The explanation lies in the Russian strategic outlook
since the Soviet era. For the West, war begins when politics ends.
However, the Russian approach follows a Clausewitzian inspiration:
war is the continuity of politics and one can move fluidly from one to
the other, even during combat. This allows one to create pressure on
the adversary and push him to negotiate.

From an operational point of view, the Russian offensive was an

example of its kind: in six days, the Russians seized a territory as
large as the United Kingdom, with a speed of advance greater than
what the Wehrmacht had achieved in 1940.

The bulk of the Ukrainian army was deployed in the south of the
country in preparation for a major operation against the Donbass.
This is why Russian forces were able to encircle it from the beginning
of March in the “cauldron” between Slavyansk, Kramatorsk and
Severodonetsk, with a thrust from the East through Kharkov and
another from the South from Crimea. Troops from the Donetsk
(DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) Republics are complementing the Russian
forces with a push from the East.

At this stage, Russian forces are slowly tightening the noose, but are
no longer under time pressure. Their demilitarization goal is all but
achieved and the remaining Ukrainian forces no longer have an
operational and strategic command structure.

The “slowdown” that our “experts” attribute to poor logistics is only

the consequence of having achieved their objectives. Russia does not
seem to want to engage in an occupation of the entire Ukrainian
territory. In fact, it seems that Russia is trying to limit its advance to
the linguistic border of the country.

Our media speak of indiscriminate bombardments against the

civilian population, especially in Kharkov, and Dantean images are
broadcast in a loop. However, Gonzalo Lira, a Latin American who
lives there, presents us with a calm city on March 10 and March 11. It
is true that it is a large city and we do not see everything—but this
seems to indicate that we are not in the total war that we are served
continuously on our screens.

As for the Donbass Republics, they have “liberated” their own

territories and are fighting in the city of Mariupol.

3. Denazification

In cities like Kharkov, Mariupol and Odessa, the defense is provided

by paramilitary militias. They know that the objective of
“denazification” is aimed primarily at them.

For an attacker in an urbanized area, civilians are a problem. This is

why Russia is seeking to create humanitarian corridors to empty
cities of civilians and leave only the militias, to fight them more
easily.

Conversely, these militias seek to keep civilians in the cities in order

to dissuade the Russian army from fighting there. This is why they
are reluctant to implement these corridors and do everything to
ensure that Russian efforts are unsuccessful—they can use the civilian
population as “human shields. Videos showing civilians trying to
leave Mariupol and beaten up by fighters of the Azov regiment are of
course carefully censored here.

On Facebook, the Azov group was considered in the same category as

the Islamic State and subject to the platform’s “policy on dangerous
individuals and organizations.” It was therefore forbidden to glorify
it, and “posts” that were favorable to it were systematically banned.
But on February 24, Facebook changed its policy and allowed posts
favorable to the militia. In the same spirit, in March, the platform
authorized, in the former Eastern countries, calls for the murder of
Russian soldiers and leaders. So much for the values that inspire our
leaders, as we shall see.
Our media propagate a romantic image of popular resistance. It is
this image that led the European Union to finance the distribution of
arms to the civilian population. This is a criminal act. In my capacity
as head of peacekeeping doctrine at the UN, I worked on the issue of
civilian protection. We found that violence against civilians occurred
in very specific contexts. In particular, when weapons are abundant
and there are no command structures.

These command structures are the essence of armies: their function

is to channel the use of force towards an objective. By arming citizens
in a haphazard manner, as is currently the case, the EU is turning
them into combatants, with the consequential effect of making them
potential targets. Moreover, without command, without operational
goals, the distribution of arms leads inevitably to settling of scores,
banditry and actions that are more deadly than effective. War
becomes a matter of emotions. Force becomes violence. This is what
happened in Tawarga (Libya) from 11 to 13 August 2011, where
30,000 black Africans were massacred with weapons parachuted
(illegally) by France. By the way, the British Royal Institute for
Strategic Studies (RUSI) does not see any added value in these arms
deliveries.

Moreover, by delivering arms to a country at war, one exposes

oneself to being considered a belligerent. The Russian strikes of
March 13, 2022, against the Mykolayev air base follow Russian
warnings that arms shipments would be treated as hostile targets.

The EU is repeating the disastrous experience of the Third Reich in

the final hours of the Battle of Berlin. War must be left to the military
and when one side has lost, it must be admitted. And if there is to be
resistance, it must be led and structured. But we are doing exactly the
opposite—we are pushing citizens to go and fight and at the same
time, Facebook authorizes calls for the murder of Russian soldiers
and leaders. So much for the values that inspire us.
Some intelligence services see this irresponsible decision as a way to
use the Ukrainian population as cannon fodder to fight Vladimir
Putin’s Russia. This kind of murderous decision should have been left
to the colleagues of Ursula von der Leyen’s grandfather. It would
have been better to engage in negotiations and thus obtain
guarantees for the civilian population than to add fuel to the fire. It is
easy to be combative with the blood of others.

4. The Maternity Hospital At Mariupol

It is important to understand beforehand that it is not the Ukrainian

army that is defending Marioupol, but the Azov militia, composed of
foreign mercenaries.

In its March 7, 2022 summary of the situation, the Russian UN

mission in New York stated that “Residents report that Ukrainian
armed forces expelled staff from the Mariupol city birth hospital No.
1 and set up a firing post inside the facility.”

On March 8, the independent Russian media Lenta.ru, published the

testimony of civilians from Marioupol who told that the maternity
hospital was taken over by the militia of the Azov regiment, and who
drove out the civilian occupants by threatening them with their
weapons. They confirmed the statements of the Russian ambassador
a few hours earlier.

The hospital in Mariupol occupies a dominant position, perfectly

suited for the installation of anti-tank weapons and for observation.
On 9 March, Russian forces struck the building. According to CNN, 17
people were wounded, but the images do not show any casualties in
the building and there is no evidence that the victims mentioned are
related to this strike. There is talk of children, but in reality, there is
nothing. This may be true, but it may not be true. This does not
prevent the leaders of the EU from seeing this as a war crime. And
this allows Zelensky to call for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
In reality, we do not know exactly what happened. But the sequence
of events tends to confirm that Russian forces struck a position of the
Azov regiment and that the maternity ward was then free of civilians.

The problem is that the paramilitary militias that defend the cities
are encouraged by the international community not to respect the
customs of war. It seems that the Ukrainians have replayed the
scenario of the Kuwait City maternity hospital in 1990, which was
totally staged by the firm Hill & Knowlton for $10.7 million in order
to convince the United Nations Security Council to intervene in Iraq
for Operation Desert Shield/Storm.

Western politicians have accepted civilian strikes in the Donbass for

eight years, without adopting any sanctions against the Ukrainian
government. We have long since entered a dynamic where Western
politicians have agreed to sacrifice international law towards their
goal of weakening Russia.

Part Three: Conclusions

As an ex-intelligence professional, the first thing that strikes me is the

total absence of Western intelligence services in the representation of
the situation over the past year. In Switzerland, the services have
been criticized for not having provided a correct picture of the
situation. In fact, it seems that throughout the Western world,
intelligence services have been overwhelmed by the politicians. The
problem is that it is the politicians who decide—the best intelligence
service in the world is useless if the decision-maker does not listen.
This is what happened during this crisis.

That said, while some intelligence services had a very accurate and
rational picture of the situation, others clearly had the same picture
as that propagated by our media. In this crisis, the services of the
countries of the “new Europe” played an important role. The
problem is that, from experience, I have found them to be extremely
bad at the analytical level—doctrinaire, they lack the intellectual and
political independence necessary to assess a situation with military
“quality.” It is better to have them as enemies than as friends.

Second, it seems that in some European countries, politicians have

deliberately ignored their services in order to respond ideologically
to the situation. That is why this crisis has been irrational from the
beginning. It should be noted that all the documents that were
presented to the public during this crisis were presented by
politicians based on commercial sources.

Some Western politicians obviously wanted there to be a conflict. In

the United States, the attack scenarios presented by Anthony Blinken
to the Security Council were only the product of the imagination of a
Tiger Team working for him—he did exactly as Donald Rumsfeld did
in 2002, who had thus “bypassed” the CIA and other intelligence
services that were much less assertive about Iraqi chemical weapons.

The dramatic developments we are witnessing today have causes that

we knew about but refused to see:

on the strategic level, the expansion of NATO (which we have not

dealt with here);
on the political level, the Western refusal to implement the Minsk
Agreements;
and operationally, the continuous and repeated attacks on the
civilian population of the Donbass over the past years and the
dramatic increase in late February 2022.

In other words, we can naturally deplore and condemn the Russian

attack. But WE (that is: the United States, France and the European
Union in the lead) have created the conditions for a conflict to break
out. We show compassion for the Ukrainian people and the two
million refugees. That is fine. But if we had had a modicum of
compassion for the same number of refugees from the Ukrainian
populations of Donbass massacred by their own government and
who sought refuge in Russia for eight years, none of this would
probably have happened.
Civilian casualties caused by active hostilities in 2018-2021, per territory

  In territory In   In   Decrease
control- led Government- “no Total compared
by the self- controlled man’s with
pro- claimed territory land” previous
“Republics” year, per
cent

2018 128 27 7 162 41.9

2019 85 18 2 105 35.2

2020 61 9 0 70 33.3

2021 36 8 0 44 37.1

Total 310 62 9 381  

Per 81.4 16.3 2.3 100.0  

cent

As we can see, more than 80% of the victims in Donbass were the result of the
Ukrainian army’s shelling. For years, the West remained silent about the
massacre of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by the government of Kiev,
without ever trying to bring pressure on Kiev. It is this silence that forced the
Russian side to act. [Source: “Conflict-related civilian casualties,“ United
Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.]

Whether the term “genocide” applies to the abuses suffered by the

people of Donbass is an open question. The term is generally
reserved for cases of greater magnitude (Holocaust, etc.). But the
definition given by the Genocide Convention is probably broad
enough to apply to this case. Legal scholars will understand this.

Clearly, this conflict has led us into hysteria. Sanctions seem to have
become the preferred tool of our foreign policies. If we had insisted
that Ukraine abide by the Minsk Agreements, which we had
negotiated and endorsed, none of this would have happened.
Vladimir Putin’s condemnation is also ours. There is no point in
whining afterwards—we should have acted earlier. However, neither
Emmanuel Macron (as guarantor and member of the UN Security
Council), nor Olaf Scholz, nor Volodymyr Zelensky have respected
their commitments. In the end, the real defeat is that of those who
have no voice.

The European Union was unable to promote the implementation of

the Minsk agreements—on the contrary, it did not react when
Ukraine was bombing its own population in the Donbass. Had it
done so, Vladimir Putin would not have needed to react. Absent from
the diplomatic phase, the EU distinguished itself by fueling the
conflict. On February 27, the Ukrainian government agreed to enter
into negotiations with Russia. But a few hours later, the European
Union voted a budget of 450 million euros to supply arms to the
Ukraine, adding fuel to the fire. From then on, the Ukrainians felt
that they did not need to reach an agreement. The resistance of the
Azov militia in Mariupol even led to a boost of 500 million euros for
weapons.

In the Ukraine, with the blessing of the Western countries, those who
are in favor of a negotiation have been eliminated. This is the case of
Denis Kireyev, one of the Ukrainian negotiators, assassinated on
March 5 by the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) because he was too
favorable to Russia and was considered a traitor. The same fate befell
Dmitry Demyanenko, former deputy head of the SBU’s main
directorate for Kiev and its region, who was assassinated on March 10
because he was too favorable to an agreement with Russia—he was
shot by the Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”) militia. This militia is
associated with the Mirotvorets website, which lists the “enemies of
Ukraine,” with their personal data, addresses and telephone numbers,
so that they can be harassed or even eliminated; a practice that is
punishable in many countries, but not in the Ukraine. The UN and
some European countries have demanded the closure of this site—
refused by the Rada.
In the end, the price will be high, but Vladimir Putin will likely
achieve the goals he set for himself. His ties with Beijing have
solidified. China is emerging as a mediator in the conflict, while
Switzerland is joining the list of Russia’s enemies. The Americans
have to ask Venezuela and Iran for oil to get out of the energy
impasse they have put themselves in—Juan Guaido is leaving the
scene for good and the United States has to piteously backtrack on
the sanctions imposed on its enemies.

Western ministers who seek to collapse the Russian economy and

make the Russian people suffer, or even call for the assassination of
Putin, show (even if they have partially reversed the form of their
words, but not the substance!) that our leaders are no better than
those we hate—for sanctioning Russian athletes in the Para-Olympic
Games or Russian artists has nothing to do with fighting Putin.

Thus, we recognize that Russia is a democracy since we consider that

the Russian people are responsible for the war. If this is not the case,
then why do we seek to punish a whole population for the fault of
one? Let us remember that collective punishment is forbidden by the
Geneva Conventions.

The lesson to be learned from this conflict is our sense of variable

geometric humanity. If we cared so much about peace and the
Ukraine, why didn’t we encourage the Ukraine to respect the
agreements it had signed and that the members of the Security
Council had approved?

The integrity of the media is measured by their willingness to work

within the terms of the Munich Charter. They succeeded in
propagating hatred of the Chinese during the Covid crisis and their
polarized message leads to the same effects against the Russians.
Journalism is becoming more and more unprofessional and militant.

As Goethe said: “The greater the light, the darker the shadow.” The
more the sanctions against Russia are disproportionate, the more the
cases where we have done nothing highlight our racism and servility.
Why have no Western politicians reacted to the strikes against the
civilian population of Donbass for eight years?

Because finally, what makes the conflict in the Ukraine more

blameworthy than the war in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya? What
sanctions have we adopted against those who deliberately lied to the
international community in order to wage unjust, unjustified and
murderous wars? Have we sought to “make the American people
suffer” for lying to us (because they are a democracy!) before the war
in Iraq? Have we adopted a single sanction against the countries,
companies or politicians who are supplying weapons to the conflict
in Yemen, considered to be the “worst humanitarian disaster in the
world?” Have we sanctioned the countries of the European Union
that practice the most abject torture on their territory for the benefit
of the United States?

To ask the question is to answer it… and the answer is not pretty.

Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence,

specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has

served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security

institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has

worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the

proliferation of small arms. He was involved in discussions with the highest Russian military and

intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis

and later participated in programs to assist the Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence,

war and terrorism, in particular Le Détournement published by SIGEST, Gouverner par les fake

news, L’affaire Navalny. His latest book is Poutine, maître du jeu? published by Max Milo.

This article appears through the gracious courtesy of Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement,

Paris. Translated from the French by N. Dass.

Featured image: “Capitulation,” by Petr Krivonogov, painted in 1946.

Related Articles:
1. The Military Situation in the Ukraine—An Update
2. The Nazis Of Ukraine
3. The Russia-Ukraine Conflict And The Tumult Of Our Time
4. The Russian Peace: A Conversation With Alexander Dugin
5. The Failed End Of History And Russia’s War Against The Liberal
World Order
6. Ideology And Global Politics: A Conversation With Ciro Paoletti

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