French General Fired After Failing To Predict Russia’s Ukraine War

Students of history know that prominent Frenchmen have lost their heads over lesser offenses than failing to predict wars. Let it be recorded that in March 2022, a French general lost just his job due to that faux pas. General Eric Vidaud, the head of French military intelligence, has been fired from that post after only seven months on the job, French media and the BBC reported, after failing to predict that Russia would invade Ukraine. Earlier this month another French general, Thierry Burkhard, told the newspaper Le Monde: “The Americans said that the Russians were going to attack, and they were right.” France24 reported that another French website, l’Opinion, said an unidentified French military source cited a lack of mastery of relevant topics and “briefings insuffisants” as some of the reasons behind the firing. There could have been another quite specific one: The French president has spoken with Vladimir Putin with widely publicized regularity in recent months — including in the days preceding the Russian invasion on February 24. Paris could hope for better optics than this.General Burkhard also said that French intelligence services thought that the cost of conquering Ukraine would have been “monstrous” and surmised that Russians had other options, though he did not elaborate on what those were purported to be. Prior to the invasion, not only did American intelligence warn of its likelihood but also suggested that the Kremlin already had at least one specific candidate in mind to head a puppet regime in Kiev should the government of Ukraine’s elected president, Volodymr Zelensky, be toppled swiftly. That much, of course, has not happened. Whether President Macron or top military brass ordered General Vidaud’s firing is unclear, and an inquiry by The New York Sun to the French ministry of affairs was not immediately answered. It can be said with some certainty, though, that the general’s underperforming intelligence radar had caused both the Quai d’Orsay and Palais Élysée beaucoup d’embarrassment.Furthermore, while there has been an attempt to frame the firing as part of a preplanned staff reshuffle at military intelligence, that branch really answers to the French secret service. That shadowy entity is what calls the shots in such weighty matters and, it is implied in a dispatch in Le Monde, accelerated the departure of General Vidaud — at the behest, it is reasonable to assume, of Mr. Macron.While the French president would probably like to put this incident behind him and proceed with burnishing his image as the self-styled liaison par excellence between the West and Mr. Putin, at least one other youthful president has been open and unapologetic about some new changes in personnel. Mr. Zelensky has just recalled Ukraine’s ambassadors to Morocco and Georgia, saying in a public video message, “With all due respect, if there won’t be weapons, won’t be sanctions, won’t be restrictions for Russian business, then please look for other work.”

French General Fired After Failing To Predict Russia’s Ukraine War

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