A European sanctioned by Europe, supported by European citizens each day: welcome to the EU “democrateur”.A conversation with Col. Jacques Baud
Jacques Baud lives in Brussels under EU sanctions. He is a retired Swiss colonel and former strategic military intelligence analyst who has written extensively on the war in Ukraine. The EU listed him in December 2025 for what it called pro-Russian propaganda and conspiracy theories. His assets in the eurozone are frozen, he cannot travel freely, and he has spent most of the past year without reliable access to his own money. In a conversation recorded this week, Baud discussed the practical consequences of being sanctioned. He cannot buy food. Meals are brought to him by people who call themselves the “resistance”. They are not young street militants. They are people of his generation, many with similar educational backgrounds, who say the current political climate in Europe reminds them of what they were taught about occupied countries or the Soviet period. Every time he leaves his house, strangers stop him on the pavement to say they support him. One person, two, sometimes three. He is better known now than he was before the sanctions. Being de-banked (effectively) has been particularly debilitating. His lawyers applied in early May for a humanitarian exemption so he could cover basic needs. Approval came five months later. Implementation is still pending and is expected around mid-November. Baud estimates he will be able to use his Belgian bank account for roughly fifty days this year before the licence expires. On which basis, he has already filed the next request for a 2027 licence because the sanctions were renewed in October. There is no fixed end date and no clear criteria for lifting the sanctions against Jacques Baud. Officials have described the measures as temporary. Yet Baud points out that an open-ended annual renewal is not temporary. The stated purpose of the sanctions is to put pressure on the Russian government. Baud notes that this rationale does not survive contact with reality. He is a Swiss citizen living in Belgium. He is not a Russian official, oligarch, or decision-maker. The EU’s own listing language has shifted: the claim that he was “harming Ukraine” was dropped in the renewal of his sanction. What remains is the use of a foreign-policy instrument against a European resident. Baud describes the political situation in Europe as a “democrateur”—a system that retains the forms and trappings of democracy while removing effective democratic control over major decisions and behaving like a dictatorship. It is not classical dictatorship. Institutions exist, elections take place, and courts function. Yet a small number of people can impose measures that ordinary citizens have no practical means to challenge. His case, he says, has become emblematic precisely because ordinary Europeans can now see themselves as potential targets of the same machinery. Sanctioning Baud, then, has a chilling effect on free speech in Europe. “If you say the wrong thing, you could be next.” He declined an invitation to speak at the AfD congress so as not to politicise his situation, yet his name was mentioned repeatedly there. The sanctions have supplied ammunition to the very political forces the EU says it wants to contain. The conversation also ranged across related themes: the gap between electoral promises and governing practice in France and Germany, the difference between controlled labour migration and the growth of parallel economies, and the observation that some non-Western states score higher on democracy-perception surveys because governments deliver on the expectations they set. How uplifting, yet also troubling that a European resident is being sustained by private individuals because the institutions of the European Union have made it impossible for him to buy food with his own money. Support reaches him through a Swiss account organised by a support committee. Switzerland has not adopted the relevant EU sanction against him measures so the arrangement is a practical workaround, not a solution. You can support Jacques Baud by donating to this PayPal account. The larger question the interview leaves is whether the EU will be inclined to treat growing differences of opinion and analysis on foreign-policy, and indeed protest, as a threat that has to be crushed, even as the evidence mounts that western policy has been, and continues to be, a catastrophic failure? In those circumstances, I fear, Europe will look less and less democratic, and increasingly dictatorial. You can watch the discussion here: Wherever you are in the world, whatever your nationality and religion, I wish you much peace. You're currently a free subscriber to The Peacemonger. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. © 2026 ian |