[drooopy]

Are you referring to Jacques Baud who has been sanctioned recently because he has been working as a mouthpiece of the russian government?

[newsclues]

I’ve seen his interviews on YouTube and I’m not sure if he is a Russian asset or just says things contrary to the western narrative. There is a propaganda war.

So what hard evidence that he is working for the Russians?

[vfclists]

In the same way John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs are mouthpieces of the Russian govt?

Since when is it OK for governments to sanction people when they are lawfully expressing disagreement with Govt policies or views?

[mopsi]

  > Since when is it OK for governments to sanction people when they are lawfully expressing disagreement with Govt policies or views?

When it stops being a disagreement over policy and becomes a paid job for a foreign government to spread as much malicious FUD as possible.

The former commander of Russian ground forces recently gave a long interview in which he said that the Russian army was on the verge of total collapse in the fall of 2022, when Ukrainian forces were pushing them back during the highly successful Kharkiv counteroffensive. Mearsheimer, Sachs, et al played a vital role in spreading FUD and unfounded fears that led to less military support for Ukraine than was needed. As a result, hundreds of thousands more people are dead than might have been had Ukraine been supported properly.

Mearsheimer alone has done more to deny modern weapons to Ukraine than the entire Russian air force could. In terms of ROI, he has been a spectacularly cost-effective propaganda asset. He has the blood of countless people on his hands and deserves to be hanged. But instead, he will kick the bucket due to natural causes in old age, a luxury not afforded to the children who died in their bedrooms under Russian missile attacks that Mearsheimer twisted himself into a pretzel to enable and justify.

[TheOtherHobbes]

If the people who attacked Ukraine without provocation - just as they attacked other neighbours in other regions - are attempting to bring down a democratically elected regimes across the region, so they can replace them with weak compliant puppets, the "thought crime" becomes straightforward self defence.

[koonsolo]

Here are some facts for you:

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, they were officially neutral (law from 2010, pushed by Russia). At the time of the invasion, there was neither political nor public will to join NATO.

Another fact: Maidan was not about joining NATO, but having equal economic ties to both Russia and EU.

So can you acknowledge that Russia didn't invade Ukraine because of NATO expansion?

Does it sound weird to you that after Russia's invasion in 2014, Ukraine cancelled their neutral status and wanted to join NATO?

[YY348762378]

Jaques Baud is not a "mouthpiece". He has never appeared on Russian state TV and has taken great pains to avoid citing Russian sources in his analysis. The problem is that what he has been saying about the Ukraine war (that the war is not winnable and peace should be negotiated as soon as possible) is dangerous as to European leadership.

[TheOtherHobbes]

It's not remotely dangerous to the European leadership.

It is dangerous to EU citizens who are on the receiving end of a campaign to radicalise national governments with far-right Russian-funded puppet regimes which will - clearly, as we can see in the US - be absolutely hostile to existing freedoms.