Telling interview
Fascinating interview with Alain Juillet, the former head of France's intelligence services DGSE under Chirac's tenure: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AQhGxsprH8A…
Arnaud Bertrand translated and summarized interesting aspects, in particular what he says about Ukraine, and notably on the origins of the war. Recopied for posterity here on this blog:
He says everyone saw the Ukraine war coming, that "only those who know nothing about this matter can say it was a surprise". To him, the main reason is because the West "refused since 2014 to tell the Ukrainians to respect the Minsk agreements".
He says "the French, the Germans, the Russians and the Ukrainians signed the Minsk agreements in 2014 but the Ukrainians didn't respect the agreement during the entire period since. And the Russians were telling us all the time to get them to respect the agreement but we didn't."
He says it's unacceptable to invade a country but he also says that "we are co-responsible for it." The host notes that "former foreign ministers of France like De Villepin or Védrine are accusing the Americans of being responsible". He replies: "yes, that's what I am saying."
On the promise made to Russia in the early 1990s not to expand NATO he says that former french Foreign Minister Roland Dumas, who was in the negotiations, is adamant that everyone at the time (including Baker and Kohl) agreed that NATO would not expand East of reunified Germany.
He said the Americans weren't true to their word and pushed for the eastern expansion of NATO "in total contradiction with what was said [to Russia]".
He says the long-term origin of the divide in Ukraine dates back from the opposition between the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Russian tsarist empire. He adds that since then there's been a divide in Ukraine between those two sides.
He reminds that during WW2 the "Austro-Hungarian side" fought alongside the nazis while the Russian side fought against them. To him today is "clearly a continuation of this, it's being going on for 300 years."
The host asks him if the Maidan revolution in 2014 was organized by the Americans. He replies: "One thing that particularly caught my attention is Victoria Nuland, who is currently the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, saying that..."it cost the U.S. $5bio to get into Ukraine and that they weren't going to leave now after that. What does that mean, Madame Nuland? She is by the way the same one who, when told the Europeans weren't happy, said 'f*ck the EU'. So it's pretty clear..."
He adds that what happened before the Maidan revolution was Ukraine forbidding the Russian language: "You have 40% of the population that speaks Russian. So you forbid a language that large percentage of the population uses under the pretext that you don't like the Russians."
He states that it's "not serious, it's not possible. That was already a very bad start." What happened after is that "they took the Azov battalion and the others and told them to go to Donbass to hit pro-Russian Ukrainians on the head."
What they also did was cut the water supply in Crimea. That was before Putin took it back. So there was a terrible anti-Russophone/anti-Russian population policy in Ukraine. That's what people don't realize in the West. It's no wonder the Russian side reacted."
"Putin, seeing that, he isn't stupid. He sees people who are on his side getting oppressed, he's not going to go against them..."
The host asks him why the Americans train and maintain close relations with extreme right groups like the Azov. He replies that "those militia, given their ideology, we could be very confident that they were going to fight against the people in Donbass."
"They were the perfect representation of the Western side of Ukraine and of course they hated the Russians." To him it's wrong to think there are no nazis in Ukraine. "When Hitler invaded Ukraine, Stepan Bandera, who was a Ukrainian nationalist, saw it as an opportunity to be freed from the Russians by siding with the nazis." He adds that "the Das Reich nazi division that committed the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre [a famous massacre in France committed by the nazis during WW2], they were all Ukrainians, 95% of them were Ukrainians."
He continues: "When they say today 'there are no nazis in Ukraine', I say 'who are you kidding?'." He adds: "It's obvious in Ukraine there is a divide between those with pro-Nazi tendencies - not all of them of course, there are also decent people who are neither nazis nor Russians but simply Ukrainians - but you do have strong tendencies on both sides as well. [...] He adds that "unfortunately these are things we can't say on mainstream media because if you say something like this on official TV they cut you and never invite you again."
On the banning of Russian media like RT in France he says: "I thought we were not at war? If we are at war, it's normal to forbid the enemy's media on our territory but if we're not at war, what allows us to ban some media just because we disagree with their views?"
"This is called a thought crime. That's very serious. In the country of liberty it raises a certain number of issues... I'm not defending RT at all, that's not the issue, it's a question of principle."
Notes by Arnaud Bertrand
That's the gist of it.
Alain Juillet is an old time "Gaulliste", which in foreign policy means he is very attached to an unaligned and independent France, i.e. not blindly following the Americans on their crusades like France has done with our latest presidents since Sarkozy. His uncle Pierre Juillet was Jacques Chirac's mentor (the last French president faithful to Gaulliste principles in foreign policy, famously refusing the Irak war) and his grandfather was De Gaulle's classmate so you can hardly find anyone more Gaulliste than him!
His views on the origins of the conflict largely correspond with what the immense majority of top strategic thinkers believe
How long can this disconnect between what those "in the know" believe and what the public at large is told continue?
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