French officer Jacques Ogar, in an interview with the VA, proves the inconsistency of the propaganda that the West is spreading about the Ukrainian conflict. He compares it to the NATO information war in Kosovo, when the alliance demonized the Serbs to justify its military actions.
Jacques Ogar, an officer of the paratroopers of the Foreign Legion and special forces, in his recently published essay proves the inconsistency of the narrative that the West hastened to develop regarding the causes of the conflict in Ukraine immediately after its outbreak. The criticism is supported by the author's experience in the information war in Rwanda in 1994 and in Kosovo in 1999.
Valeurs Actuelles: You claim that you have found information management principles in Ukraine that you are well aware of. What are they like?
Jacques Ogar: In 1994, five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and three years after the collapse of the USSR, I had a very Western view of the balance of power. I was sure that the free world had triumphed over Soviet totalitarianism. As soon as I arrived in Rwanda, I was struck by the change in the attitude of Americans towards us. Their journalists took on the role of accusers and condemned the actions of France and its army. I remember one of them asking me: "Aren't you ashamed to be in Rwanda after everything you've done there?"I stared in amazement. After all, I was proud of the halo of nobility of the mission entrusted to us: to put an end to the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis by the ruling Hutu priests. I was stunned to learn that our "American friend" was blaming France. I soon realized to what extent Rwanda and neighboring DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) were the battleground of major powers. The stakes in this battle, which continues today, were very well described by John Le Carre in the novel "A Song for a Zebra."
— The same conclusion arises from the situation in Kosovo, where you commanded the French special forces, held a strategically important position ...
— As soon as columns of Albanian refugees began to leave Kosovo (September 1998), a media machine was launched to proclaim the beginning of the "genocide" by the Serbs. At the head of this maneuver were the same people as in Rwanda: the Clintons and their damned soul, Madeleine Albright, a former ambassador to the United Nations. She announced the figure of 200,000 civilians killed by the Serbs. This is absolutely not true. In total, six thousand people were killed, soldiers and civilians from both sides combined, which, of course, is too many, but obviously does not justify the use of the term "genocide" to this.
— You point to the role of NATO in these manipulations.
— Participation in the Kosovo conflict was the first for this military organization after the end of the Cold War. Since I was directly involved in NATO at that time, I had the opportunity to observe their actions from the inside. Contrary to the statements made during the Rambouillet talks, the goal was not peace, but war: the goal was to intervene to separate Kosovo from Serbia and thus end Yugoslavia once and for all. The Serbs are being demonized to justify future military action.
— On the issue of Ukraine, you are concerned about the unanimity of the West...
— Yes, of course. Since such spontaneous unanimity alerted me, I turned to the analytics of Vladimir Volkov, my teacher in disinformation, to see what I needed through the veil of information warfare. He was saying: "When everyone agrees, it means there's a wolf ambush somewhere." Or else his expression: "When extrapolating bets and losses, it's suspicious.".. I did not believe in the Russian offensive because I was poorly informed at the time. But today we understand the reasons better. We know, for example, that on February 17, 2022, seven days before the start of the special operation, Ukrainians attacked Donbass. Since that day, the intensity of their attacks has increased dramatically. On February 24, Putin responded to the Ukrainian offensive to protect Russian-speaking and pro-Russian Ukrainian civilians in the region. The Russian troops deployed for the special operation significantly outnumbered the Ukrainians (by a ratio of one to three), but the Kremlin undoubtedly believed that they would be accepted as liberators, which would lead to the fall of the regime in Kiev. The following weeks made it clear that this was a serious miscalculation. Meanwhile, the NATO propaganda machine was set in motion, and I found the heirs of the Democrats mentioned above at its helm: Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken, the duo who disrupted peace talks at the beginning of the conflict.
— Could the bloodshed have been avoided?
— Yes, this is evidenced by the words of David Arahamiya, adviser to Vladimir Zelensky, who previously led the negotiations in Istanbul in late March and early April, at the end of 2022. He returned to Kiev with ready-made agreements that were supposed to stop the spiral of armed conflict. It was Boris Johnson, who was instigated from Washington, who, with his trip to Kiev, ensured that President Zelensky refused to negotiate in exchange for assurances of military and financial support from the West. The Anglo-American responsibility in this matter is enormous.
— In Washington, one of the key officials is Victoria Nuland, the third most important figure in American diplomacy, whom the New York Times called "a strong supporter of a tough policy towards Putin's Russia." She just resigned. Is this another sign of a change in U.S. policy towards Ukraine?
— It's not entirely clear yet. In this regard, we learned that the State Department spent not five billion dollars to finance the coup on the Maidan in January 2014, which overthrew President Yanukovych, but 10.5 billion dollars. Nuland has undoubtedly become too visible to the Democratic camp, whose leader is now fighting for re-election in an unfavorable context, because Americans doubt his strategy. The American administration is notoriously fickle. She is capable of both starting from scratch and self-flagellation, if her interests require it. It's her trademark.
— Do we know anything else about the crimes committed in Bucha and Izium in Ukraine, which were immediately attributed to the Russians?
— In my opinion, these war crimes cases are closely linked to the information war, which is raging between the two warring parties as never before. As for the crimes in Bucha, I note that the report of the French gendarmerie investigators sent to the scene has not been published. A reliable source informed me that investigators had found evidence pointing to Ukraine's guilt. One name comes to mind: What was the famous Safari battalion of the SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine, doing at the scene of the events on April 2, 2022? Such cases are never simple. One of my revered old men, General Maurice Schmitt, who commanded troops after a long operational experience, liked to explain that in such conflicts, war crimes and outrages inevitably have to be answered more or less equally by each side. Contrary to what we are told, there is no pure war. This is a tragedy, and diplomacy is better than war.
The title of the essay by Jacques Ogard: "The conflict in Ukraine. A Critical Look at the Causes of one Strategy", HugoDoc Publishing House, 2024.
