May Day!

Glasgow May Day 1960, fun for the family.

          Glasgow's May Day March, 2022, was a poor show compared to other years, despite the horrendous onslaught to our standard of living not enough people seem to tie the two together. May Day a day to mark our struggles and come together to celebrate our successes. To create unity among all ordinary people as we fight for the better world for all. As an anarchist it was disappointing to find that myself, my partner and a member of the ACG appeared to be the only three handing out anarchists literature. These events are surely the one place where we can get among the people and try to spread our ideas on how to try and proceed in creating that better world. It was a trade union organised event and seemed to have shrunk in numbers since previous years, but still the place to get our ideas out.
         May Day in Glasgow, like many other cities, used to be a massive event for families, a great day out thousands gathering to celebrate, have fun, a picnic and an abundance of political argument and debate available. Now it seems to be a slow walk to a park, a couple union bosses preaching and then go home. It might make the unions look as if they are doing something, but it is killing the workers May Day. Glasgow anarchists, sorry, I for one was disappointed at your performance at this May Day, you were practically invisible.
        Friends of the People's Palace, Winter Gardens and Glasgow Green put on a good show with part of their now famous massive yellow banner well displayed. Well done Friends. 

 

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Anzac.

            All wars are fought to protect the rich and powerful of one power block from the rich and powerful of another power block. They are either fought to increase the resources and markets of one power block or to protect resources and markets of a power block. As the power blocks gear up for war, the war propaganda will spew out, illusions will be painted, through the subservient media, the poison of patriotism will be flow like a river in spate, we will be fed such garbage as defending "our nation", an illusion will be manufacture about some foreigners wanting to destroy "our culture" our way of life, the other is evil and must be destroyed. All this because the rich and powerful need the ordinary people as cannon fodder to shed their blood in these power struggles of the rich and powerful parasite class. Without a subservient population their power would collapse.

The following from Enough is Enough:

        Australia. On 25 April, 1915, about 25,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed at Anzac Cove. Australia’s militaristic national myth was founded on the Gallipoli landing. 

Originally published by Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group.

Gallipoli 1915

Winston Churchill wanted to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Plan A, a naval attack on the Dardanelles, failed.  Plan B was a land assault.    So, on 25 April, about 25,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers landed at Anzac Cove.  Many were mown down by Turkish guns on the very first day.    By the time of the evacuation nearly nine months later, the debacle had cost 56,000 lives on the allied side and another 56,000 on the Turkish.    The Gallipoli Campaign was one of the many crimes in the much larger crime that was World War I, a clash of two rival imperial alliances squabbling over territory, colonies and resources. Over 17 and a half million people, civilian and military, died for the wealth and power of their ruling classes.

Read the full article HERE: 

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Answers!

 

       What is your answer to the astronomical energy price rises, rocketing food prices, increase taxes, increased interest rates, all of which will kick your standard of living back to the Victorian times? All managed by a group of very rich people, who in all events will not have too much to worry about regarding their standard of living. All off them pointing to the hardship and struggle the ordinary people are facing, but not one of them will suggest an end to the insane economic system that is responsible for all this misery being heaped on you and I. They are all obedient servants of the economic madness that blights the lives of millions, and is destroying the planet, capitalism.
         So what will you do, make placards, march in solemn lines appealing to our lords and master to do something to ease our plight? Will you queue longer and with patience at the nearest food bank? Will you try hard to tighten your belt and live on less, or perhaps, cut down on the kids food? Change your vote for the new Messiah? While we do this, energy companies make billions in profit to feed their over privileged shareholders. Will we stand by while large very rich corporations see their shareholders become millionaires/billionaires. Of course we know that all the above methods have been tried in the past with around about zero effect on our living standards. You may get a small concession here and a little sweetener there, mere paracetamol by the system to make you feel better, to quieten you down, but will not cure our ills, poverty, homelessness, fuel poverty, food insecurity, crumbling health service and broken education system.
        Perhaps this onslaught of hardship and poverty that is being flung our way, way be a kick to much, and we will try a different method to cure our ills. For example build up mutual aid centres in our communities, take control of our community assets and run them as we wish them to be run. Take control of our workplaces and produce for our needs, not for the profit of millionaires/billionaires. They need us, without us they are nothing, we don’t need them, we built everything, shipped everything and distributed everything. The problem is we have been doing it to the dictate of greedy self interested corporations all for their benefit while they laughed all the way to the bank at our servility.

 

 

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Posh Boys.

 

Rees-Mogg at work, we paid for him to be there!!

           I have always said that, our seat of government, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption was nothing more than a posh boys club, with a lot of power over our lives. I will stick by that definition even although there are some women members. To most of the members, the women are seen as an inconvenience, a bit of decoration, something to be ogled at and ridiculed. Apparently, at the moment, there are 56 MPs, including three minister, under investigation for sexual misconduct, with one allegedly, watching porn on his phone while in the chamber, his place of work, for which we pay for him to be there. This on top of a whole gang of them, including the Prime Minister were having a good laugh at the public during the pandemic lockdown, by having boozy parties, when the whole nation was suffering. Once their insolent arrogance was discovered it was barefaced denial and then a waffled, muffled hypocritical apology, with so far, 50 of them being issued with fines for breaches of the law. While this two faced farce is taking place, most of these over paid, individuals were coining it in with 2/3/4 other jobs on top of their MP salary.
         What does that say about us, the general public, when we turn to this garbled gang of self centred misfits and vote for them to take care of our assets and organise our society for our benefit? Their record is there for all to see, child poverty, homelessness, growing food banks, crumbling health service, broken education system, care system in crisis, a crumbling standard of living due to unmanageable rise in cost of the necessities of life. While at the same time the number of millionaires/billionaires grows, energy companies refer to the “energy crisis” as a money making machine pulling in astronomical profits.
          Isn’t it time we brought this whole grotesque edifice to self centred greed and corporate profit crashing down? We don’t need posh arrogant self centred misfits to manage our lives, we could do a much better job by ourselves, organising our lives through our communities in co-operation and mutual aid with other communities. Why do we continually feed millionaires/billionaires while we struggle for a decent life?

                                          Image courtesy of Politica Santuarium.

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State.

            The state would wither away if it didn't continually tighten its control over it citizens. anything that might try to shift the power away from the establishment, the rich and powerful, towards the communities and the ordinary people will always be seen as the real enemy. To expect other than this is failing to understand the true nature of the state. It fights to have the monopoly on power, the sole right to create laws and regulations, which will always be there to protect the status quo. The state has a whole box of tricks in its various appendages, its loaded judiciary, specially constructed "laws" its uniform thugs and its inhumane prisons, all there to protect the state and its privileged and powerful managers.

The following from Enough is Enough:

          Lyon. France. “We must rely on the state to contend with fascists!” liberals will tell you. “To fight bigotry and fascism, we have to give the authorities the legal powers to combat them for us!” they say. So what happens when a state has the legal authority to decide whether a political group has the right to exist in society? Who will the state wield that power against?

Originally published by International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund.

          If you’re an anarchist or if you live in Lyon then you already know the answer. The French state reserves for itself the right to ban or “dissolve” any group it deems to be “extremist.” The dissolution laws have been criticized by radical, extremist organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for their incompatibility with French republican values like freedom of association.
          The city of Lyon has been a hotbed of fascist violence as of late. Last year, les fachos mobbed up to attack a pro-choice/pro-LGBTQ+ march; destroy a Kurdish community centre, injuring the volunteers working there; and wreck a left-wing bookstore (something the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund stepped in to assist with afterwards). So it would stand to reason that those would be the groups the French state would target for dissolution, not the groups opposed to them.
        Wrong. Last month Groupe Antifasciste Lyon et Environs (GALE) were informed that the state had dissolved them. Their rationale? GALE had been involved in a concert months before where a hiphop artist performed got the crowd to join in chanting “toute le monde detestes les flics!” (“everybody hates the police!”). That was literally all it took for the state to target GALE and ultimately declare them dissolved. This is the first time we have heard of an anti-fascist group being “dissolved” by the state.
        GALE plan to appeal this draconian crackdown via the French courts and have set up a crowdfunder to help pay for that appeal; the International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund unanimously decided to make a sizeable contribution to that appeal. If you support the values upon which the French republic was established, you should do likewise.

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Paper.

 

          My undying love for anarchist papers on the streets, in the community and workplaces, demands that I post this article regarding In Der Tat, a German anarchist paper which is also available in English.

The following from Enough is Enough:

Editorial of the 1st issue

          To question all authority, to reject all kinds of power and to enter into conflict with them is a continuous fight. A fight in which we‘re trying to develop free relationships, beyond the existing order. But to create something new also always means to be drawn into the unknown and to dare new relationships, new projects, new steps, and experiments.
         With this, a new step has been taken: to express our thoughts, to reflect upon our ideas and deepen them. Hereby we‘re creating a new means to extend our practice and horizons – across regions and beyond the borders of cities and countries. Not least to start a correspondence with you, with the anarchists and the enemies of power out there, with those who are considered strange, dangerous, and deranged in this world. This journal is spread on paper because this is a step towards you, from individual to individual, beyond the digital delirium and the pre-chewed opinions.
          This journal is addressed to those who want to break with the world of authority here and now and who want to express their love for freedom.
          We experience freedom through the destruction of authority, through paralyzing the veins that are keeping power alive, through the overcoming of the routine. For us, anarchy is not an abstract philosophy but an actual tension against authority, a real change in our relationships, which we can only experience in the destruction of authority. A stance that becomes a confrontation with power, not merely in words but also in acts.

Order copies in so-called Canada/US: intheact@riseup.net
Order copies in Europe: indertat@riseup.net

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Bookfair.

   

              Another reminder, May 7th.  get your red marker and mark your diary, Red and Black Clydeside Bookfair at the CCA, 350, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow. This is the first Red and Black Bookfair  in Glasgow for some considerable time. It is loaded with stalls, speakers, discussion groups, film, come and be part of it, participate, or just mingle and chat, with old friends, make new friends. With the onslaught of the standard of living crisis hitting us all, there never has been a more urgent time to come together and discuss these things and perhaps find solutions. Or just come along pick up some leaflets, enjoy the event and the company.

The Venue.

  The Bookfair.

 

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Free Press??

 

          The following article is testament to the British state and its "support" for freedom of the press. The press being handed a script by the state officials of what to write about an incident rather than the reporters reporting what actually happened. To think that this couldn't happen today is rather naive in the extreme, though perhaps the need now is less since all the major media outlets are owned by strong supporters of the state and the established order. So will load their tales in accordance with their views and will not rock the boat too much. 

The Mitchell Library

          Forward was a socialist newspaper published in Scotland from 1906. The founding editor was Tom Johnston, who was one of two main shareholders, alongside Roland Muirhead. It was associated with the Fabian Society, the Independent Labour Party and the temperance movement. It was committed to socialism and reported on these issues.
           In 1915, the paper was closed down for six weeks on the order of Chancellor David Lloyd George, for reporting a meeting where he had met a hostile crowd.
“When Lloyd George got up to talk, according to Forward, he ‘was received with loud and continued booing and hissing ... Two verses of “The Red Flag” were sung before the minister could utter a word.’ The meeting ‘broke up in disorder’ and reporting of it was restricted, with newspapers told to reproduce a press release stating that Lloyd George had been given a sympathetic hearing.
           Forward was shut down for six weeks, under DORA, after publishing its uncensored account of the meeting, though Johnston had been careful, as he thought, not to print anything that contravened it (William Beveridge, assistant secretary at the Ministry of Munitions, found it correspondingly difficult to make a case against him). Johnston wrote in his memoirs that Lloyd George ordered the police to remove copies from every newsagent in Scotland, and ‘had the police search the homes of known purchasers’.”
           Three men were arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act and charged with published material “calculated to cause mutiny, sedition or disaffection among the civilian population and to impede the progress and restrict the production of war material.’ Lloyd George’s actions were debated in the House of Commons on the 4th and 10th January 1916.
           Editorship of the Forward newspaper was passed to Emrys Hughes in 1931, George Thomson in 1948 and Francis Williams in 1957.
It ceased publication in 1959.
         Find out more about our newspaper collections in our "Breaking the News" exhibition in the Mitchell Library on the ground floor.

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Work?

  

         We have created a society, a structure that demands we sell ourselves to someone or something in order to gain sustenance to survive. Work becomes the term used for normality, the desired state to find comfort. In order to have a decent life we look for our slave master, we accept our slavery, or we could find ourselves homeless, destitute. In most cases this work enriches others rather than ourselves and our family. The more we look for and accept work as a means of survival the stronger the power of our slave masters. Until we realise this, we hand a heritage of slavery to our children and our grandchildren. Work is dressed up as good and honourable, the right thing to do, when in fact all it does is strengthen the links on our chains, binds us to an unjust, unequal and insane structure that will, in the end, if allowed to continue, destroy us all and our planet.

 

The following from Act for Freedom Now:

      Let’s destroy work, let’s destroy the economy!

         Let’s destroy work, let’s destroy the economy! We are not concerned with the political problems of those who see unemployment as a danger to democracy and order. We do not feel any nostalgia for lost professionalism. We don’t want better wages or the continuation of subsidies. Nor are we for the abolition of work, the discovery of alternative ways of life, or the reduction to the minimum in order to live happily. We want the destruction of a system that makes us beg for the minimum necessary so as not to starve to death.
        We want the destruction of work and this society, of what we do during the day and its continuation that extends until night, a perpetual circle that never seems to end. We refuse to remain prisoners in this prison without bars or walls, but whose objective is exactly the same: resignation to what they tell us to accept, to the bosses’ orders and to the police that protect them and protect what we need to destroy.
        We want the destruction of the rule that makes us continue like this, prisoners of a job that takes all: our time, our energy, our creativity. The destruction of work is above all the destruction of survival, a step into the unknown. Destroying work means attacking, attacking that on which work is based and that which it produces. The attack does not affect profit indirectly, as a strike does, but hits the structure directly, either the means of production or the end product. And the object to be destroyed, although it is property, is also work, because it is something that results from work.

 

 

 

We do not want to be destroyed by capitalism, so capitalism will have to be destroyed by us.

 

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Pillage.

          Glasgow City Council is becoming famous for it gay-abandon and pillage attitude to Glasgow's common goods and public assets. At the moment there is a campaign to reopen the Glasgow People's Palace and Winter Gardens, which the council closed. The campaign group "Friends of the People's Palace, Winter Gardens and Glasgow Green" have so far got the council to open part of the People's Palace but the trashed, (by the council) Winter Gardens remains closed. This vandalism has raised the anger of the people of Glasgow who demand it get reopened as it was, a free, pleasant public place for the citizens to enjoy. The council seem keen to open it as some sort of commercial concern, getting the public to pay for entry and some business to make lots of money from what was, and should continue to be a wonderful public asset for all to enjoy free.
         The Friends of the People's Palace, Winter Gardens and Glasgow Green, held another protest on the Green on Saturday 23rd. April and they are becoming famous not only for their persistent and innovative campaign but also for their massive long banners, a work of art in themselves. The yellow banner stretches all the way round the People's Palace and Winter Gardens and creates quite a bit of interest from public and press for the comments and info on the banner. However the campaign needs more support from Glasgow's people to finally push the council into a state of common decency and sense and reopen the People's Palace and Winter Gardens as they were intend, for the people of Glasgow forever and ever, and free.

 

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The Veil.

          We live behind a veil that conceals society's true structure, vaguely concealing a system that talks peace but continually plans and executes wars, every one of their wars sheds the blood of ordinary people who gain nothing, the spoils go to the planners and perpetrators of these wars. All wars are for the rich and powerful, but they need the blood of the ordinary people to feed their messianic desires for more power, wealth and privileges. In the present economic system of insanity war is big business, the goose that lays the golden egg, the milk-cow that keeps on giving to the corporate/state military industrial complex.  

The Following from Act For Freedom Now:

 Against Militarism, For Social Revolution Everywhere!

Against their war, against their peace. 

Anarchists London 2022.

          For over a week now we have been placed, once again , in the position of an anxious spectator, exposed for once (in ‘real time’ through our personal devices) to the full horrors of the weaponries, technologies and industries which ordinarily are grinding behind the veil of ‘civilisation’.
          The whole political circus stops and only a few figures are left in the ring: an ‘enemy ‘ to fear and hate, an ‘ally’ to represent everything worth loving and striving for, and a ’cause’ to defend. The rest is bickering and bragging about specific measures.
          This alliance with power, where exploited and their exploiters join hands against an external threat, is the substance of ‘social peace’; it works just as well for Western detnocratic-oligarchies as it does for Putin. Crises and threats of this kind are indispensable for continuing the global war conducted by the forces of order, against those who they want to discipline and put to work .
         Terror, righteousness, pity, charity, grand existential rhetoric, and the guilty feeling of being ‘at peace’ in a ‘free country’- hey will do very well to keep our noses to the grindstone while they extract even more work from us with price rises covering energy, food, transportation and other basic needs.
          Even better, now they can blame it all on the enemy abroad! Every state is a ‘state of war’! Every technology they implement is a military technology. Every territory they mould and supervise is under hostile occupation- whether the hapless generals sit scrambling for advantage in the ‘situation room in silicone valley boardroom
          It is in this reality that we must intervene. Let’s break ranks! The practice of freedom is anathema to and can have NO COMMON GROUND with the capitalist and statist mafias, the oligarchs, bureaucrats and managers of all stripes. The only way to throw a barricade in the way of this evolving project of power is to spread social antagonism and attack against those responsible. We want to look each other in the eye, claiming our dignity and freedom not in the war between nation, but the social war.

 

 

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Growth??

            How have you faired over the last 7 years or so? Have you seen your personal wealth grow by an astronomical amount? Or like most ordinary people in this country you have been struggling to keep you head above water. However our economic pundits tell us that the UK growth has been among the strongest in Europe, with figures like 7.5%, 3.2% etc. these figures are supposed to make you feel better as this refers to the growth in the total wealth of the country. Well has your wealth grown by this much, where is your share of this "growth". During the pandemic in the UK, 24 new billionaires were created, bring the total to 171 billionaires in the UK. Collectively UK billionaires saw the collective wealth grow by a staggering $61 billion over the previous year. We are facing unmanageable energy price increases, staggering inflation in life's necessities, higher taxes and increased interest rates, but no matching wage or benefit increases to met this savage onslaught to our standard of living.
          However difficult it may become for you and I to have a decent life, this economic system makes sure that our pampered, over privileged, billionaire parasites will always do very well.

 

Minimum Wage UK.

2012: £6.19 per hour, 2021: £8.91per hour.

 

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NATO.

     NATO is Western imperialism's war machine, dominated and controlled by U$A. Any illusion that it is some sort of defence arrangement, is based on illusion and propaganda. There is nothing defensive in the make up of this mega imperialist military machine, and it is all funded by our tax money to the tune of  $1.2 trillion, 2021, the largest military budget in the world, up 24.9% since 2014. After the U$A, the UK is the biggest contributor to the NATO war budget with a whopping £56+billion, what would that do for social services? Think of $1.2 trillion being paid into world health and welfare budgets. The choice is ours if we would only take the steps to organise and stop this imperialist insanity.

The following is an extract from Struggle la Lucha:

           As the U.S. and its NATO satellites, particularly Germany, Britain and France, flood weapons into Ukraine, NATO is being “transformed” into a fighting force capable of direct wars on Russia and China, says NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. NATO formally launched a 40,000-strong rapid response force targeting Russia in February. This was in addition to the 175,000 NATO troops already on Russia’s border. Also to be noted is President Joe Biden’s shift away from the “no first use” of nuclear weapons, with the Pentagon announcing March 29 that the U.S. would consider first use of nuclear weapons.
          In an interview with the Telegraph, Stoltenberg said NATO is in the process of making a “fundamental” shift from engaging in what he called “tripwire deterrence” to “be transformed into a major force capable of” direct warfare. Stoltenberg made clear that China is as much a target as Russia. “We are finalizing the work on the new strategic concept that will be agreed at the NATO summit in June. … And there, I expect China to be an important part.” Stoltenberg adds: “It is also of concern that we see that Russia and China are working more and more closely together.”
         Since 2014, Stoltenberg said, “We have implemented the biggest reinforcement of NATO since the end of the Cold War.” Following the overturn of the Soviet Union, NATO has expanded from 16 countries to 30. NATO expansion technically means that the member-nation’s armed forces are “integrated” into the NATO military command. NATO takes command, with the U.S. dominating. No NATO member-state can act without U.S. approval.
NATO expansion into Eastern Europe
         For the last two decades, NATO has been expanding into Eastern Europe. In 1999, NATO took in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were incorporated. In 2009, Albania and Croatia. In 2017, Montenegro. In 2020, North Macedonia. Finland and Sweden are reported to be “within weeks” of deciding to join NATO.
          Meanwhile, the U.S. is expanding its proxy war in Ukraine, as Leon Panetta, who was CIA director and then secretary of defense in the Barack Obama administration, so clearly put it. The United States and its NATO military operation is in a proxy war against Russia, with Ukraine as the battlefield. The U.S. role, Panetta said, is to provide more and more weapons faster and faster with Ukraine doing the fighting, bolstered by foreign mercenaries. It’s a matter of military fact that in the Ukrainian proxy war, more military-technical assistance has been dispatched by the U.S. and its NATO satellites, in a larger amount and in a shorter time, than in any previous military conflict in history.
Stop arming Ukraine
           “Russia warns U.S. to stop arming Ukraine,” the Washington Post reported April 14. The Post says: “Russia this week sent a formal diplomatic note to the United States warning that U.S. and NATO shipments of the ‘most sensitive’ weapons systems to Ukraine were ‘adding fuel’ to the conflict there and could bring ‘unpredictable consequences.’” The diplomatic note, titled “On Russia’s concerns in the context of massive supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Kiev regime,” was forwarded to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington. In it, Russia accuses NATO of trying to “pressure Ukraine to abandon peace negotiations with Russia in order to continue the bloodshed.” The U.S. has sent more than $2.6 billion worth of arms and other military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its military action in February. The Pentagon explained, “The United States has now committed more than $3.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration.”
           NATO’s military budget accounts for the majority of military spending worldwide. NATO military spending in 2021 was $1.2 trillion ($1,200,000,000,000), up 24.9% since 2014.
U.S. commands NATO 

          As noted by the Pentagon, NATO is the primary force for U.S. dominance and control in Europe.

Read the full article HERE: 

 

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Misinformation.

 

        We are in the midst of a third world war, not yet the blood and slaughter stage, but never the less, an imperialist war to carve up the planet. We are on the brink of that blood and slaughter world war, as the dominant power on the planet tries to weaken another power block that could be a threat to its hegemony. It is important for that dominant power to win the propaganda war to try to keep its populations on its side should it turn into that blood and slaughter war. So we are fed misinformation, distortions, omissions and down right lies, the truth lies buried somewhere in that pot of sewage. As far as the Ukrainian situation is concerned the more information the better, but we have to wade through all the shit to try to find the truth. 

The following extract from Struggle la Lucha.

          Jacques Baud is a former Colonel of the General Staff in the Swiss armed forces, and between 1983 and 1990 was a member of the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service. Baud was involved in discussions with Russian military and intelligence officials at the highest level, just after the fall of the USSR.
         He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He was the head of doctrine for United Nations peace operations. A United Nations expert for the rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional United Nations intelligence service in Sudan. He worked for the African Union and was responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms at NATO for 5 years. Within NATO, he followed the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, then participated in programs of assistance to Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence, war and terrorism.

         This report was originally published by CF2R (French center for intelligence research): La Situation Militaire en Ukraine
Part One: On the road to war
         For years, from Mali to Afghanistan, I worked for peace and risked my life for it. It is therefore not a question of justifying the war, but of understanding what led us to it. I note that the “experts” who take turns on the television sets analyze the situation based on dubious information, most often hypotheses turned into facts, and therefore we no longer manage to understand what is happening. That’s how you create panic. The problem is not so much who is right in this conflict, but how our leaders make their decisions.
        Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbass. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ” independence ” (независимость) referendums , as some unscrupulous journalists claimed , but ” self-determination ” or ” autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin. In fact, these republics did not seek to separate from Ukraine, but to have a statute of autonomy guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. Because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 which made Russian an official language. A bit as if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages ​​in Switzerland.
          This decision causes a storm in the Russian-speaking population. This resulted in fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which began in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and a few massacres (in Odessa and Mariupol, for the most important). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained.
          At this stage, too rigid and stuck in a doctrinaire approach to the operational art, the Ukrainian staffs suffered the enemy without succeeding in imposing themselves. Examination of the course of the fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbass shows that the Ukrainian general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same operational plans. However, the war waged by the autonomists was then very close to what we observed in the Sahel: very mobile operations carried out with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of the Ukrainian forces to “trap” them repeatedly.
         In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military.
         The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords. But, just after signing the Minsk 1 Accords, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a vast anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against Donbass. Bis repetita placent : poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat at Debaltsevo which forced them to commit to the Minsk 2 Agreements… It is essential to recall here that the Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements provided for neither the separation nor the independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Accords (they are very, very, very few) will find that it is written in full that the status of the republics was to be negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the republics, for an internal solution in Ukraine .
         This is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded their application while refusing to be a party to the negotiations, because it was an internal matter for Ukraine. On the other side, the Westerners – led by France – systematically tried to replace the Minsk Accords with the “Normandy format”, which brought Russians and Ukrainians face to face. However, let us remember, there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before February 23-24, 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass. Thus, the US intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December 3, 2021 does not show Russian troops in Donbass.
In October 2015, Vasyl Hrytsak, director of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), confessed that only 56 Russian fighters had been observed in the Donbass. It was an even comparable to that of the Swiss going to fight in Bosnia during the weekends, in the 1990s, or the French who are going to fight in Ukraine today.
The Ukrainian army was then in a deplorable state. In October 2018, after four years of war, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor Anatoly Matios said that Ukraine had lost 2,700 men in the Donbass: 891 from disease, 318 from traffic accidents, 177 from other accidents, 175 from poisoning (alcohol, drugs), 172 from careless handling of weapons, 101 from breaches of safety rules, 228 from murder and 615 from suicide.
          In fact, the army is undermined by the corruption of its cadres and no longer enjoys the support of the population. According to a UK Home Office report , when reservists were called up in March-April 2014, 70% did not show up for the first session, 80% for the second, 90% for the third and 95% for the fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of callers did not show up during the “ Autumn 2017 ” callback campaign. This does not include suicides and desertions(often for the benefit of the autonomists) which reach up to 30% of the workforce in the ATO zone. Young Ukrainians refuse to go and fight in the Donbass and prefer emigration, which also explains, at least partially, the country’s demographic deficit. 

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