In an interview with the independent US media portal grayzone.com, the retired Swiss intelligence officer, NATO advisor and author Jacques Baud dealt with the Ukraine war and in particular sharply criticized Western media reporting.
Baud, whose most recent book “Operation Z” is devoted to the Ukraine conflict, pointed out that the Western media consistently only reported the Ukrainian version of events, which is often embellished or simply wrong.
The former Swiss military-intelligence officer explained: “All the information we have about Ukraine, I can say all, 100 percent of the information that appears in the mainstream media comes from Ukrainian propaganda. I mean the numbers, the number of injuries, the number of fatalities, the number of incidents, everything.”
Baud essentially identified three subject areas in which Western reporting is way off the mark because it takes a one-sided pro-Ukrainian position.
Firstly, the West is talking (or writing) about the use of Russian nuclear weapons – even though Putin has never threatened to use nuclear weapons. The Kremlin boss only threatened to use “all the weapons systems at our disposal” if “the territorial integrity of our country is threatened”. According to Baud, these primarily include hypersonic missiles and missiles with multiple warheads, but not nuclear warheads.
Incidentally, a “no first use” policy applies in Russia when it comes to the use of nuclear weapons – in complete contrast to the US. US President Biden moved away from such a “no first strike” policy this year. So it is in fact Washington which is keeping a nuclear strike open.
Even the closest US ally, Great Britain, has repeatedly confirmed a nuclear first strike. The now former Prime Minister Liz Truss expressly underlined this in the run-up to her assumption of office: “I am ready to do it.”
Secondly, contrary to actual developments, Russia is not sabotaging possible peace negotiations or a negotiated solution. The fact is that since the outbreak of the war the US and Great Britain have succeeded several times in thwarting a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.
As early as March, shortly after the start of the war, Putin’s words that Ukraine and Russia were “very, very close to a peace agreement” fell on deaf ears in the western mainstream media. At the time, Ukraine was being pressured by the United States and the West to refuse a compromise with Russia. In this context, Baud pointed out that there have been three attempts to bring about peace between Russia and Ukraine – all of which have been nipped in the bud by the West.
The first attempt was made just one day after the outbreak of war, on February 25. According to Baud, the Ukrainian President Zelensky was called back by the EU, since an “aid package” of 450 million euros for weapons had already been put together. According to Baud, the situation was similar on a second attempt in March.
In this case, too, weapons deliveries from the West – this time amounting to 500 million – were on the way. The British Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, even flew to Kiev specifically to pressure the Ukrainian President to prevent a peace deal.
In a third attempt, Turkish President Erdogan wanted to mediate a peace agreement at the end of March. After he flew to Kiev “unexpectedly”, the Ukrainians made it expressly clear at a press conference in the country’s capital that there would be no negotiations with the Russians.
According to Baud, Ukraine is being cynically abused by the West. From the West’s point of view, the war in Ukraine only serves the goal of forcing Russia to its knees and letting it bleed economically. “No one really cares about [Ukraine],” Baud said. It is primarily used for the strategic interests of the United States. However, the US and the West has miscalculated the Russian response because “the original goal was to provoke Russia in order to be able to destroy its economy through sanctions”.
The sanctions have meanwhile come to nothing. The original assumption was that Russia would quickly collapse under them, explained Baud in yet another interview to discuss his new book.
“The one-sided and biased representation provided by mainstream media is not intended to help us solve the problem, but to promote hatred of Russia. Thus, the exclusion of disabled athletes, cats, even Russian trees from competitions, the dismissal of conductors, the de-platforming of Russian artists, such as Dostoyevsky, or even the renaming of paintings aims at excluding the Russian population from society!
“In France, bank accounts of individuals with Russian-sounding names were even blocked. Social networks Facebook and Twitter have systematically blocked the disclosure of Ukrainian crimes under the pretext of ‘hate speech’ but allow the call for violence against Russians.”
Russia, contrary to expectations, has not collapsed and is fighting on. The ex-Swiss secret service agent summed up the West’s policy of sanctions: “We imposed sanctions upon sanctions upon sanctions without this having achieved anything.”
Thus the West has become a “victim of its own error”. Furthermore, the loser is Europe, which is currently sinking into an energy and economic crisis. But the biggest loser is Ukraine, which is a mere pawn on the West’s drawing board.