William Molinié 09:49, December 19, 2022
The discreet intelligence service of the French armies has agreed to open its doors to Europe 1. Throughout the week, we take you to the air base 110 of Senlis-Creil in Oise, to the HQ of the expert centers of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DRM)
EXCLUSIVE
"Sir, put your connected objects in the box, please".
65km from Paris, Air Base 110 stands as a fortress in the fields of the Oise.
You only enter the sacrosanct of military intelligence by leaving behind any possibility of capturing images and having your mobile phone hacked.
And for good reason, we enter an ultra-secure, compartmentalized site, where secrecy is absolute and where huge antennas are scattered everywhere.
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2,000 experts, civilians and soldiers, from the very discreet military intelligence directorate observe, among other things, Russian and Ukrainian maneuvers.
At very low noise, they collect intelligence of satellite, cyber, electromagnetic and sometimes even human origin.
"Today it is a question of thinning the fog of war. Our role is to identify the forces present, what their capacities are, what their shortcomings are. And to potentially deduce their intentions", explains on the microphone Europe 1 General Cyrille, deputy director at the DRM.
Near-open warfare
Every day, dozens of intelligence bulletins are produced by these agents.
They then feed notes transmitted to the highest peak of the state.
"The forces present know that we can know things. Sometimes they use it by imagining that we are going to be 'intoxicated'", continues General Cyrille.
The big ears of the army listen and scrutinize each maneuver, each movement, which is revealed in the open sky from Ukrainian territory.
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"We are moving from the stage of doctrine, analysis, calculations and intentions to the reality that is before our eyes, before our ears. And since this is a real war, there is no more simulation. We are no longer in exercise. And we finally have a truth of the prices in the forces that clash, "he adds.
An obsession: what happened
These shadow spies are obsessed with truth and proof.
Mariupol, Boutcha, Zaporijia or even the two Ukrainian missiles that fell on Polish territory… How to disentangle fact from fiction in a war where each belligerent also uses the lever of opinion manipulation?
Each time, the mission of these spies from the shadows is the same: to try to understand what really happened.
In order to alert the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, the Minister of Defense to the President of the Republic so that he is better informed when he dialogues with his foreign counterparts.
