Ukraine, Mali, Burkina Faso ... why the boss of military intelligence was pushed out

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Sacked for not having seen coming, or not being sufficiently alerted to the Russian invasion in Ukraine: General Éric Vidaud, head of military intelligence (DRM), will leave his post.

In addition to the misses of his services in the eyes of his military and political hierarchy, the officer would pay according to L'Opinion for his "insufficient briefings" and a "lack of mastery of the subjects".

This four-star general, former boss of the Special Operations Command (COS), who worked for Jean-Yves Le Drian, then Minister of Defense, had only been in charge of the DRM since last summer.

The "myopia" towards the East of French intelligence, both military and civilian, with the DGSE or the services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has long been underlined, the "services" being more turned in recent years towards Africa, the Levant and the terrorist threat.

Missed Ukrainian?

The gap, between on the one hand the profusion of information and the alarmism of American intelligence, which went so far as to give the day of the Russian attack, and on the other the wait-and-see attitude of the French, was glaring during the weeks before the war.

Sign among others, Paris only gave evacuation instructions to its nationals or diplomatic personnel in Ukraine at the last moment, well after Washington, London or Berlin.

Misinterpretations more than information

Nevertheless, this posture is due more to differences in analysis than to a lack of information.

Clearly, the French "saw" more or less the same thing - the considerable maneuvers of troops and equipment of the Russian army taking the Ukraine in a pincer movement - as the Americans.

Firstly because the latter, as a source familiar with the matter admits, “shared their information like never before”.

Then because France has, between its observation satellites, its reconnaissance and listening planes, etc., its own a priori effective means.

Perhaps the Anglo-Saxons also had well-placed human sources in Putin's system.

Read alsoWhat are our spies really doing?

Intelligence agents tell their job

The American strategy was to publicly say to the Russians: “Watch out, we see what you are doing”, in an attempt to dissuade them.

"Our services rather thought that the conquest of Ukraine would have a monstrous cost and that the Russians had other options" to bring down President Zelensky, acknowledged General Thierry Burkhard, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, in The world.

“You have a bundle of clues, you have to interpret them, it's complicated to be right… There, the Americans were right,” continues our source.

It should also be noted that, since then, the alerts launched by Washington on the possibility of Russian chemical attacks in Ukraine were this time immediately considered and relayed by Paris.

Still, the initial divergence of interpretation does not only concern the DRM but the entire French intelligence community.

The Ukrainian failure adds to the Australian submarine fiasco and, worse, to the successive coups in Mali and Burkina Faso, which took Paris by surprise.

The cleanup in services may have only just begun.