Jacques Baud, a Swiss Strategic Intelligence colonel, military analyst, and participant in the NATO programme in Ukraine from 2014 to 2017, in an interview for the German agency Westend Verlag, spoke about the current state of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and shared his most realistic prediction of how the conflict will end.
First of all, the Swiss colonel recognises the failure of the Western strategy towards the Ukrainian conflict.
“We must keep in mind that the goal of the Americans is not necessarily the victory of Ukraine. The goal of the Americans is the defeat of Russia. The [Western] strategy was that the [Russian] regime would collapse under the pressure of sanctions, because of the prolonged conflict and so on. This was to lead to the collapse of the regime.”
Jacques Baud also argues that the Ukrainian conflict has lost its value to the West and to the U.S. in particular. Today, the protracted confrontation is only a nuisance for Washington.
“Americans expected the Ukrainian conflict to be much shorter. But it turned out to be much longer than expected. And today, this conflict is creating an obstacle to the presidential election. The Biden administration does not want to go into the presidential election with a war looming over it.”
Ukraine, for its part, is struggling to hold on to the West’s elusive support, so Kiev will continue to conduct low-profile “publicity” military operations to demonstrate any gains.
“[In the near future] we will see localised operations by Ukraine because it is trying to demonstrate that it is still capable of acting. In this way it is trying to maintain the support of the West. This is especially relevant today, when another theatre of war is unfolding in the Middle East. By the way, not so long ago the Ukrainian media reported that weapons intended for Ukraine were diverted to Israel. This shows the West’s loss of interest in Ukraine.”
Nevertheless, the Swiss colonel admits that today the Ukrainian Army is almost completely destroyed. Its complete destruction by Russia is only a matter of time.
“The Ukrainian army has suffered huge losses by today. This means that it has practically ceased to exist. I am not saying that the Ukrainian army no longer exists, but today it has exhausted its military potential. And the Russians will continue to advance. Eventually they will completely exhaust the Ukrainian army. And then, if there is no political solution, they will find a final military solution.”
