This program features a reading of an interview done with Colonel Jacques Baud by The Postil.
Key Points of Discussion and Analysis: As with the two analytical pieces Baud did on the conduct and progress of the war itself, Colonel Baud stresses that the picture of the Ukraine War being presented by Western politicians and media voices consists of what they want to happen, rather than the information that would be provided by a good intelligence service, which would present the situation as it actually exists:
1.–“ . . . . As a result, we tend to portray the enemy as we wished him to be, rather than as he actually is. This is the ultimate recipe for failure. . . .”
2.–“ . . . . First, most people, including politicians and journalists, still confuse Russia and the USSR. For instance, they don’t understand why the communist party is the main opposition party in Russia. . . .”
3.–“ . . . . Most people, including the top brass, tend to confuse ‘Russia’ and ‘USSR.’ As I was in NATO, I could hardly find someone who could explain what Russia’s vision of the world is or even its political doctrine. Lot of people think Vladimir Putin is a communist. . . .”
4.–“ . . . . In 2014, during the Maidan revolution in Kiev, I was in NATO in Brussels. I noticed that people didn’t assess the situation as it was, but as they wished it would be. This is exactly what Sun Tzu describes as the first step towards failure. . . .”
5.–“ . . . . We like to call him [Putin] a ‘dictator,’ but we have a hard time to explain what we mean by that. As examples, people come up invariably with the assassination of such and such journalist or former FSB or GRU agents, although evidence is extremely debatable. . . .”
6.–“ . . . . the German doctors in the Charité Hospital in Berlin, were not able to identify any nerve agent in Navalny’s body. Surprisingly, they published their findingsin the respected medical review The Lancet, showing that Navalny probably experienced a bad combination of medicine and other substances. The Swedish military lab that analyzed Navalny’s blood—redacted the name of the substance they discovered, which is odd since everybody expected ‘Novichok’ to be mentioned. . . .”
7.–“ . . . . In fact, it appeared clear to me that nobody in NATO had the slightest interest in Ukraine. The main goal was to destabilize Russia. . . .”
8.–“ . . . . The problem here is that these far-right fanatics threatened to kill Zelensky were he to try to make peace with Russia. As a result, Zelensky found himself sitting between his promises and the violent opposition of an increasingly powerful far-right movement. In May 2019, on the Ukrainian media Obozrevatel, Dmytro Yarosh, head of the ‘Pravy Sektor’ militia and adviser to the Army Commander in Chief, openly threatened Zelensky with death, if he came to an agreement with Russia. . . .”
9.–“ . . . . I am not sure about the so-called ‘color-revolutions’ aim at spreading democracy. My take is that it is just a way to weaponize human rights, the rule of law or democracy in order to achieve geo-strategic objectives. . . .”
10.–“ . . . . Ukraine is a case in point. After 2014, despite Western influence, it has never been a democracy: corruption soared between 2014 and 2020; in 2021, it banned opposition media and jailed the leader of the main parliamentary opposition party. As some international organizations have reported, torture is a common practice, and opposition leaders as well as journalists are chasedby the Ukrainian Security Service. . . .”
11.–“ . . . . But as soon as you come up with western data that do not fit into the mainstream narrative, you have extremists claiming you ‘love Putin.’ . . .”
12.–“ . . . . Our media are so worried about finding rationality in Putin’s actions that they turn a blind eye to the crimes committed by Ukraine, thus generating a feeling of impunity for which Ukrainians are paying the price. This is the case of the attack on civilians by a missile in Kramatorsk—we no longer talk about it because the responsibility of Ukraine is very likely, but this means that the Ukrainians could do it again with impunity. . . .”
13.–“ . . . . With the end of the Cold War, Russia expected being able to develop closer relations with its Western neighbors. It even considered joining NATO. But the US resisted every attempt of rapprochement. . . .”
14.–“ . . . . The purpose of this incredible polarization is to prevent any dialogue or negotiation with Russia. We are back to what happened in 1914, just before the start of WWI. . . .”
15.–“ . . . . Since 2014, I haven’t met any intelligence professional who could confirm any Russian military presence in the Donbass. In fact, Crimea became the main ‘evidence’ of Russian ‘intervention.’ Of course, Western historians ignore superbly that Crimea was separated from Ukraine by referendum in January 1990, six months before Ukrainian independence and under Soviet rule. In fact, it’s Ukraine that illegally annexed Crimea in 1995. . . .”
16.–“ . . . . Regardless of what Russia does, US and western strategy is to weaken it. From that point on, Russia has no real stake in its relations with us. Again, the US objective is not to have a ‘better’ Ukraine or a ‘better’ Russia, but a weaker Russia. . . .”
17.–“ . . . . As Henry Kissinger said in the Washington Post: ‘For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.’ . . .”
18.–“ . . . . I think the decay of US hegemony will be the main feature of the next decades. . . . . The loss of confidence in the US dollar may have significant impact on the US economy at large. . . . a significant deterioration could lead the United States to engage in more conflicts around the world. This is something that we are seeing today . . . .”
