Jacques Baud


Jacques Baud is a former colonel in the Swiss Army, Intelligence analyst who specialises in intelligence and terrorism.
He has been criticized for his relaying of several conspiracy theories, his denial of the Syrian regime's responsibility for several chemical attacks and for his pro-Vladimir Putin positions, including through the sharing of disinformation during Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Biography

Between 1983 and 1990, Jacques Baud was a member of the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service, in charge of the Warsaw Pact forces east of the Iron Curtain and around the world.
In 1995, because of his knowledge of Africa and anti-personnel mines, he was appointed chargé de mission with the United Nations High Commissioner's Office for refugees in Goma, as head of security in the Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire, in order to prevent ethnic cleansing. In 1997, he was tasked with founding a project to deal with anti-personnel mines. He was sent as an expert to the Mine Action Service of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York.
In 2002, he was hired at the Centre for International Security Policy at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, a newly created Swiss institution. In 2005, the United Nations asked him to direct the first multidisciplinary civilian-military intelligence centre of the United Nations Mission in Sudan. In 2009-2011, he was called to New York as Head of Policy and Doctrine. at the Office of Military Affairs of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. He works on civil-military operations, improving operational intelligence, integrating women in peacekeeping operations and protecting civilians. In 2011, he was called by the African Union to head the Research Department of in Nairobi. At the end of his term of office, he was appointed Chief of Small Arms and Light Weapons and Mine Control of the Political Affairs and Security Policy Division of the NATO in Brussels.
Jacques Baud publishes on the website of the pro-Kremlin think tank CF2R, headed by Éric Dénécé. He is also the subject of criticism for his positions favourable to Vladimir Putin, his relay of disinformation and his conspiracy theories, including within the CF2R.
He is regularly invited to give his opinion on the media RT, TV Libertés and Radio Courtoisie.
In December 2025, Baud was blacklisted by the European Union as a person spreading Russia's propaganda and targeted by European sanctions, which included an asset freeze and a travel ban in the EU. At the time the sanctions were imposed, Baud was residing in Brussels and was not allowed to leave the EU or travel within the Schengen Area ; it was impossible for him to return to Switzerland.

Conspiracy theory and disinformation

In 2009, Jacques Baud stated that Osama bin Laden was not involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks:
He still maintained this theory in 2016: "There is no evidence that he played any role in the organization of attacks". In addition, after the elimination of Bin Laden by American special forces in 2011, Jacques Baud states in his book Terrorism, Political Lies and Fatal Strategies of the West, that the leader of Al-Qaeda was in fact already a prisoner of the Pakistanis since 2006 and that the United States knew it.
According to journalist Antoine Hasday, published by Conspiracy Watch, an interview with Jacques Baud given to RT France. The latter, who was regularly invited until 2020 by the traditional Swiss media, also appeared on the web-television TV Libertés, as well as previously on RT France. Interviewed on the latter channel by Frédéric Taddeï in September 2020, he minimized the human toll of the Darfur war and denied the responsibility of the Syrian army in the massacres in Homs in 2011 and in the chemical attacks of the Ghouta, Khan Sheikhoun and Douma between 2013 and 2018. Echoing the official arguments of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, he also claims that the photographs taken by the military photographer "Caesar" are not those of political opponents who died under torture, but of soldiers of the Syrian army. Jacques Baud also clears Russia by considering that the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal was caused by "food poisoning" and that the poisoning of Alexei Navalny is probably "the act of the mafia". The journalist Élie Guckert also ranks him among the "well-known actors of disinformation".
In addition, in his book Gouverner par les fake news published in 2020, Jacques Baud claims that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 was intended to react to an American operation to destabilize Afghanistan, or that Hezbollah and Iran are not responsible for the Beirut attacks that hit the Multinational Security Force in 1983: so many theories denounced by the geopolitical scientist Pascal Boniface who deplores in this book:
After the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, Jacques Baud published Putin, master of the game? The book was accused by the media of "systematically defending Vladimir Putin". The journalist Ian Hamel wrote, that "for most specialists on Russia and Ukraine, Jacques Baud has sadly sunk into conspiracy theories. Some go so far as to accuse him of being in the pay of the Kremlin". The journalist Mattia Pillonel writes that Jacques Baud seeks to "exonerate Russia in Ukraine" and that he himself "amputates the truth of the facts that do not serve his point of view". Jacques Baud claims that Vladimir Putin did not want to conquer Ukraine but simply to "demilitarize", which is, according to journalist Julien Pain, a classic argument of the Kremlin. Questioning Russian responsibility in the Bucha massacre, Jacques Baud asserts in particular that "the Bucha massacre has already been largely defeated" and that it could in fact have "been planned by the British intelligence services and implemented by the SBU Ukrainian".
Jacques Baud rejects the accusations of conspiracy theory against him, accusing his detractors, who according to him "are paid by foreigners", in particular Conspiracy Watch, who denies: "for a former intelligence officer, Baud is misinformed, Conspiracy Watch not being and never having been "paid by abroad".
In February 2023, "Conspiracy Watch" wrote that it "is both in the denial of war crimes and in the systematic defense of Vladimir Putin".

Publications

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