Former NATO Adviser: US and EU sacrificed Ukraine to "weaken Russia"
Former NATO adviser Jacques Bo spoke with a Grayzone journalist about the roots of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. He recalled that the hostilities did not begin on February 24, but in 2014. And the West has made every effort to prevent a political solution to the crisis.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is entering a new phase, and former Swiss intelligence officer, senior United Nations official and NATO adviser Jacques Bo offers his analysis. He believes that the United States and its allies have turned Ukraine into a bargaining chip in their long-standing campaign to bleed Russia dry.
Aaron Mate: Welcome! I'm Aaron Mate. Jacques Beau is with me. He held a number of senior security positions, was an adviser to NATO, the UN and the Swiss armed forces. Jacques, thank you for keeping me company.
Jacques Bo: Thank you for inviting me.
Aaron Mate: First of all, please tell us about your past and how it influenced your understanding of the Ukrainian crisis.
Jacques Bo: As you just said, I am a strategic intelligence officer. I used to deal with the strategic forces of the Warsaw Pact… It was back during the Cold War, but, nevertheless, I have a good idea of what is happening in Eastern Europe. Besides, I speak and read Russian, so I understand some documents. And recently I was seconded to NATO to head the department for combating the proliferation of small arms. In this capacity, since 2014, I have participated in a number of NATO projects in Ukraine. So I can imagine the context quite well. I followed the influx of small arms into Donbass in 2014. And also because of my past experience, I was engaged in the restoration of armored troops. Therefore, when the Ukrainian armed forces faced difficulties like a shortage of personnel and a wave of suicides – in general, everything that happened in 2014 – I was asked to participate on the NATO side in a number of projects to restore Ukrainian combat capability. In short, that's how I ended up here.
Aaron Mate: You wrote a long article – I will link to it in the notes – where you outlined the causes of the Ukrainian conflict in three main areas. There is a strategic level – the expansion of NATO; a political level – the West's refusal to implement the Minsk agreements; and an operational level – continuous attacks on the civilian population of Donbass over the past years until the apogee at the end of February 2022.
Please tell us more about this. Tell us how the shelling of civilians in Donbass became more frequent in February, about what preceded the Russian special operation, and how this escalation led to the current fighting.
Jacques Bo: I think we should be aware that the conflict did not actually begin on February 24 of this year. And in 2014. Apparently, the Russians always hoped that it would be solved politically. I mean the Minsk agreements and so on. So, in fact, it was not the events of 2014 that led to the decision to launch an offensive in Donbass. There was a kind of trigger – if you want, from two factors.
Firstly, this is the law adopted by Zelensky in March 2021, that is, last year, on the return of Crimea by force. It served as an impetus for the buildup of Ukrainian armored vehicles in the southern regions of the country. I guess the Russians were aware. They knew that an operation was being prepared against the republics of Donbass, but they did not know when, and, of course, they watched, but then the second factor worked.
You may remember that – it seems to have been February 16 – Joe Biden said at a press conference that he knew for certain that the Russians would attack. The question is, where did he get it from? I still had some contacts, and until the end of January and the beginning of February, no one even thought that the Russians would invade. So there was something that made Biden conclude that this would be the case. And this something has become the intensified shelling of Donbass since February 16. They were recorded by OSCE observers – a massive increase in violations. There are 30 times more of them than there were before – and this despite the fact that over the past eight years there have been enough violations on both sides. But starting from February 16, suddenly there was a massive jump in violations from the Ukrainian side. So for Russians, in particular for Vladimir Putin, it was a sign that the operation – Ukrainian – was about to begin.
Events were developing quite rapidly. If we look at the numbers, then, as I have already said, we will see a massive increase from the 16th to the 17th, which reached its peak on February 18, but did not stop after that.
The Russian parliament also knew about the possible offensive and adopted a resolution asking Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the two self-proclaimed republics of Donbass. This is exactly what Putin did on February 21. And immediately after that, I signed a friendship and assistance agreement with them. For what? So that in case of an attack they could apply for military assistance. And so on February 24, when Vladimir Putin decided to go on the offensive, he referred to Article 51 of the UN Charter, which provides for assistance in the event of an attack.
Aaron Mate: As you noted, the OSCE has recorded that the number of violations of the ceasefire and artillery shelling of rebel territories has increased. You have observed the deployment of Ukrainian troops. How real – or even imminent – do you think the threat of a Ukrainian attack was? How much can this be judged by the location of the troops on the other side of the front?
Jacques Bo: Yes. Absolutely. We've had reports over the last few months. We know that Ukrainians have been building up forces in the south of the country since last year – not on the easternmost border with Russia, but along the contact line with Donbass. And, as we have been observing since February 24, at the beginning of the offensive, the Russians met almost no resistance – especially in the north. In addition, they were able to encircle Ukrainian forces in the south, in the southeastern part of the country - that is, between the republics of Donbass and, if you like, "mainland" Ukraine. It is there that the main part of the Ukrainian forces is located today. This is the Russian military doctrine from an operational point of view. The main offensive took place in the south, because Vladimir Putin's stated objectives of the operation – we will probably come back to this later – are demilitarization and denazification.
Both goals, in fact, should be fulfilled in the south of the country, and it is there that the main combat efforts are being applied. Strategically, the offensive on Kiev was secondary, and it set itself two main tasks. First of all, to put pressure on the leadership in Kiev, because the essence of the game is to attract Ukrainians to negotiations. This was the first target of the secondary attack.
The second goal was to bind or block the rest of the Ukrainian armored forces so that they could not strengthen the main group in the Donbass region. And it worked pretty well, too. The Russians, as I have already said, were able to surround the main part of the Ukrainian armed forces. As soon as they achieved this, they released part of the troops from Kiev - they have been doing this since the end of March. They pulled the units back to strengthen the main grouping of troops – these are the forces for the main battle in the Donbass region. They pulled up troops from near Kiev, and now they are strengthening the flank vanguard and the offensive against the main forces in the Donbass. Some call Donbass a "battle of battles". No one knows the exact number of Ukrainian troops, but estimates range from 60,000 to 80,000. These forces are surrounded and will be broken into smaller boilers, and then destroyed or neutralized.
Aaron Mate: It is quite obvious to me that the Zelensky government, in principle, did not consider serious diplomacy on any of the key issues that would help avoid conflict. I believe there is behind-the-scenes US pressure behind this, although we cannot prove it yet. I don't rule out that the evidence will come up later. And, of course, this is the open hostility of the Ukrainian far-right, who even threatened Zelensky with reprisals if he reconciled with Russia. These threats haunt him throughout his presidency, right up to the start of the special operation. Even people from his entourage, up to a high–ranking security official, said at the end of January that the implementation of the Minsk agreements would lead to the collapse of Ukraine - although Zelensky ran for president, just promising to implement the Minsk agreements brokered by Germany and France.
At the last February talks, Zelensky's government suddenly refused to even talk to separatist representatives, and without this, no agreement is possible in principle. There were other episodes that we just learned about from The Wall Street Journal. For example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Zelensky on February 19 that, quote, "Ukraine should abandon its aspirations to NATO and declare neutrality as part of a broad deal on European security between the West and Russia." It was assumed that Biden and Putin would sign the pact proposed by Scholz, but Zelensky rejected it – and flatly.
My question is this: there is no doubt that Zelensky and Ukraine sabotaged diplomacy in every possible way, but what about Russia? Do you think Russia has really exhausted all diplomatic possibilities to avoid a conflict? For example, why not apply to the UN and request a peacekeeping contingent for Donbass? And secondly, if the goal is to protect the residents of Donbass, then why fight so far beyond its borders?
Jacques Bo: I think the Russians have completely lost faith in the West. I guess that's the main thing. They no longer trust him, and therefore they probably count on a complete military victory in order to gain an advantage in negotiations.
And Zelensky… I'm not sure he's such a determined opponent of peace. Rather, he just can't go for it. He was pressured by his own people from the very beginning… Don't forget, he was chosen for his promise to conclude peace in Donbass. This was his goal, his presidential program. But I believe that the West did not want this world – specifically, the Americans and the British. And of course, the Germans and the French, the guarantors of the Minsk agreements for the Ukrainian side, also did not fulfill their function in full. It's obvious. Especially France, which is also a member of the UN Security Council. Let me remind you: the Minsk Agreements were included in the Security Council resolution. They were not only signed by the parties in Minsk, but the members of the Security Council were responsible for their implementation, although they did not want to conclude them in principle. That is, I am sure that Zelensky was strongly pressured not to even talk to representatives of the two self-proclaimed republics.
And, by the way, we have a number of indirect evidence that what is happening in Ukraine is not entirely under Zelensky's control. Let's just say extreme right-wing nationalists... I do not know how to call them correctly, because this is a combined hodgepodge... in general, these forces clearly hinder him – and always have. And we see how he hesitates about the world. As soon as at the end of February he expressed readiness for negotiations to be held in Belarus, just a few hours later the European Union decided to supply half a billion euros worth of weapons to Ukraine. That is, the West in general, but the Americans especially, have made every imaginable effort to prevent a political solution. I think the Russians are aware of this.
We, in turn, should understand that the Russians have a different view on how to fight with Western powers, especially with the United States. We, the West, if we are negotiating, then we are negotiating up to a certain point, and then the negotiations stop, and we start a war. War means war, period. The Russians are used to acting differently. You are fighting, but at the same time you never turn away from the diplomatic path – in fact, you are moving in both directions at once. You exert psychological pressure and try to achieve your goals, including through diplomatic means. This is very similar to the approach of the Prussian general and military theorist Karl von Clausewitz, who, as you know, believed that war is the continuation of politics by other means.
That's how the Russians look at it. That is why during the whole offensive they are negotiating and expressing their readiness for them in every possible way. So the Russians certainly want negotiations, but they don't trust Western countries – the West in general. That's why they didn't go to the Security Council. By the way, they probably understand that the physical conflict that has broken out now is part of a broader war that was launched against Russia many years ago. I believe that Ukraine itself... nobody is interested. The main goal, the main task is to weaken Russia. And as soon as they succeed, they will do the same with China – you can already see that. That is, now the Ukrainian crisis has overshadowed everything else, but a very similar scenario may unfold, for example, in Taiwan. So the Chinese know about it. That's why they don't give up their, let's say, relations with Russia.
So the essence of the party is to weaken Russia, and, as you know, the Rand Corporation has conducted a number of studies on how best to exhaust it and make it waste more resources...
Aaron Mate: Just to clarify for those who don't know, Rand is a Pentagon–type think tank. In 2019, they conducted a study and considered all the options available to the United States on how to weaken and undermine Russia, and considered the best option to send weapons to Ukraine in order to ignite a conflict there, where Moscow will also be involved. Actually, that's what happened.
Jacques Bo: That's right. I think this is a full-fledged plan to weaken Russia, and that is exactly what we are seeing now. We could have foreseen this, and I believe Putin did so. He probably realized that he had to make some kind of decision – he simply could not do nothing. The Russian public will never accept it if Russia silently watches Ukraine seize or destroy the republics of Donbass. People just wouldn't understand. So he had to act. And then here's another thing: if you remember, on February 24, he said that sanctions would have been imposed regardless of his actions. That is, he was aware that the slightest intervention in the Donbass would lead to large-scale sanctions. And so I decided: "Okay, if that's the case, then I'll choose the maximum option," because it was possible to simply strengthen these republics, protect them along the contact line, or not contact them at all. But he played big and decided to destroy the forces that threaten Donbass.
Hence the two tasks. Demilitarization, that is, not total demilitarization of the whole of Ukraine, but only to suppress the military threat to Donbass – this is the main goal. Many misunderstood what Putin said, and in general he expressed his thoughts very generally, but that's how it is with Russians. They like to leave themselves room for maneuver, so they report the very minimum – only the most necessary. But this is exactly what Putin had in mind on February 21, speaking about the suppression of the military threat to Donbass. Denazification has nothing to do with either the murder of Zelensky or the destruction of the leadership in Kiev. The point is quite different, and, as I have already said, it implies a certain combination of military operations and diplomacy. Thus, the country's leadership needs to be alive for negotiations – so you can't just take and destroy the Kiev government.
So denazification is not aimed at 2.5% of the extreme right in Kiev. And 100% "Azov" in Mariupol, Kharkiv and so on. Again, many people misunderstand this, because they are told: "Well, you know, why do we need this denazification at all? After all, the extreme right-wing parties have only 2.5% or so, so it makes no sense at all." But it's about something else. About those groups that have been recruiting since 2014 to, let's say, pacify and keep under control. I can't find the right word, but, in general, to fight in the Donbass. These people are extremists and fanatics, they are dangerous.
Aaron Mate: One of the points that you focus on in your article is that part of the reason why Ukraine, in principle, needed militias, far–right militants and foreign mercenaries lies in desertion, unwillingness to serve, or even flight to the side of the rebels in the Donbass.
Jacques Bo: That's right. As I have already said, I was in NATO and monitored the flow of weapons to Donbass. We could not detect the import of weapons and the export of weapons from the Russian side. But we noticed the mass desertion of Ukrainian units – in fact, people were crossing in whole battalions. In 2014, most of the heavy artillery of Donbass was from defectors. Whole units deserted with ammunition, personnel, and so on. The fact is that the Ukrainian army was built and equipped according to the territorial principle... Thus, there were many Russian speakers in the units. When they were sent to Donbass, they did not want to fight with their relatives and Russian-speakers and preferred to desert.
In addition, in 2014, or rather from 2014 to 2017, the leadership of the Ukrainian army was no good. Corruption was generally gigantic. I'm not even sure that the military was even ready for the war that the rebels were waging at that time. It is very similar to what you can observe in the Middle East today or in past years. The mobile units of the rebels moved rapidly – much faster than the heavy units of the Ukrainian army, and as a result, if you look at the 2014-2015 fighting pattern, the Ukrainians never had the initiative. It has always been owned by the rebels. And, significantly, these are not partisans. The war was extremely mobile. And the Ukrainian army was, in principle, poorly prepared for battle. There were many suicides, alcoholism, accidents, accidents, murders.
And this led to the fact that Ukrainian youth began to flee the country – people did not want to go to serve. This is reflected in the official reports of the United Kingdom and the United States. There was extremely revealing information about the failure of the draft – people simply refused to join the army. That is why NATO joined the case, and I participated in just such a program to improve the image of the army and attract personnel there.
But NATO offered mainly systemic solutions that take time. Therefore, in order to compensate for the shortage of personnel and, possibly, to attract more aggressive cadres, they began to recruit internationalists and mercenaries. The exact number of paramilitary groups and far-right militias is unknown. Reuters calls the figure at one hundred thousand people. Again, I can't verify it, but this is a figure from Reuters. And this basically corresponds to what we are seeing now in different regions of the country. Thus, paramilitary formations played a major role not in mobile warfare, or even in ordinary field operations, but were used to maintain order in cities. And this is exactly what we are seeing, for example, in Mariupol, where units are simply not equipped for field operations. They were equipped for combat in urban conditions. They have light equipment, even some armored vehicles, but there are really no tanks or anything like that.
So these units are definitely designed for urban warfare. That's what they do in big cities. We can say that these guys are real fanatics – and very dangerous. This explains the situation in Mariupol, where there were extremely fierce battles. Surely the same thing will happen in Kharkiv.
Aaron Mate: In conclusion, I want to ask you about recent atrocities. There were reports of mass killings of civilians by Russia in the city of Bucha, as well as the killings of Ukrainian security forces, and then there was an attack on the station in Kramatorsk. I wonder if you appreciated both of these incidents and what you think about them.
Jacques Bo: Well, there are two points here. First, the facts of both incidents suggest that the responsibility does not lie with the Russians. But we don't know for sure yet. That's all we can say. To be honest, we don't really know what happened. The available evidence suggests that this is the work of the Ukrainian side, but we do not know for sure.
It's not so much the unknown that bothers me in all this, because there are always situations in war when you don't know exactly who is to blame. I am concerned that Western leaders have started making decisions without understanding what is going on. And it really hurts me: we are starting to take sanctions and decisions without even waiting for impartial international investigations. I think this reflects how much the West has distorted the decision-making process. We have already had a similar example after the hijacking – although actually it was not a hijacking - after the incident in Belarus with the Ryanair plane. You probably remember how in May last year, the first reactions began to pour in after a few minutes – although people didn't even really understand what was going on. Moreover, not only the European Union does this, but also individual European countries. As an intelligence officer, this worries me. How is it possible to make decisions so easily that affect entire countries and our own economy? This is fraught with unpleasant consequences. But we make decisions without even really realizing what is happening, and this, I think, indicates the extreme immaturity of our leadership – and the West in general. First of all, this concerns the United States, but I believe that the Ukrainian crisis has shown that the European leadership is no better. And sometimes it's even worse, as for me. People make decisions out of the blue – this is alarming and extremely dangerous.
Aaron Mate: Jacques Bo, a former officer of the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service, who held a number of senior security positions in NATO, the UN and the Swiss armed forces, was with us. Jacques, thank you so much for your time and understanding.
Jacques Bo: Thank you. Thanks.
Author: Aaron Mate
Aaron Mate is a journalist and producer. Hosts the Pushback podcast ("Rebuff"). In 2019, Mate received the Izzy Award (in honor of Izzy Stone) for outstanding achievements in independent media for coverage of the Rashagate scandal in The Nation magazine. Previously, he hosted the programs "Real News" (The Real News) and "Democracy Now!" (Democracy Now!).
