© 2025 Fdr / RESY CANONICA
Bad air is blowing across Europe. A wind of intimidation, censorship and muzzling. The case of Jacques Baud proves it. A former colonel in Switzerland’s military intelligence service and a strategic analyst, Baud has been placed by the European Union on its sanctions list because of his analyses and opinions on the Russia–Ukraine conflict—hit with an asset freeze and a travel ban within the EU. Freedom must be defended, always. Let’s defend it.
According to Brussels, Jacques Baud is “responsible for implementing actions or policies attributable to the government of the Russian Federation that undermine or threaten the stability or security of a third country (Ukraine), or supports such actions or policies, through the use of information manipulation and interference.” The measure was adopted on a proposal from the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas.
The former colonel has published numerous books in France on the Russia–Ukraine war. His positions challenge the official account of the war in Ukraine and of Russian aggression as presented by the European Union and echoed by much of the mainstream press. He is frequently interviewed by YouTube channels where audiences can find strategic analyses that diverge from the established, “beyond dispute” narrative.
Jacques Baud’s reading is broadly in line with that advanced by Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University—and, for that matter, with the analyses long put forward by Western scholars and diplomats who came before them.
What is truly alarming is that, in reporting this news, Swiss media—ranging from RSI / @SRG-SSR to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung—reproduce Brussels’ line without quotation marks, including the claim that the broadcasts in which the former colonel appears are pro-Russian.
For Switzerland—and for all of us—to accept the EU’s decision in silence would be to tolerate a climate of martial law and the persecution of freedom of opinion—one that has already claimed its first prominent victim. Jacques Baud must remain free to present his analyses and defend his views, even if—and indeed precisely because—many dislike them and because they run counter to the prevailing orthodoxy.
We would dearly like to hear, from the Confederation, the Foreign Ministry and the Swiss media, a single word that is not servile.
(gianluca grossi)
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the sanctions are a French initiative. See the Foreign Minister’s post on X.
© Post on X