The Allgemeine Schweizerische Militärzeitschrift (ASMZ), the official journal of the Swiss military officers’ society, posted on LinkedIn an endorsement of the European Union’s sanctions against retired Swiss intelligence officer Col. Jacques Baud for allegedly being an asset of Russia’s campaign against Europe.
“The EU sanctions do not target his freedom of expression,” ASMZ claims, “but rather the logistical infrastructure of his operations. Asset freezes, publication bans, transaction blockades—an area-denial intervention in the information space.”
Swiss Army officer, Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Bosshard denounced the post: “The article is nothing more than a manifesto of subservience and insecurity of the military leadership of the Swiss army and its henchmen from the Swiss Officers’ Society.”
The ASMZ post sharply contrasts with the many denunciations of the EU sanctions against Baud in mainstream Swiss publications, as we have reported, such as Inside Paradeplatz and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, one of Switzerland’s most important dailies.
ASMZ takes the line of NATO and the EU that any naysayers to the Western narrative cannot be considered as free speech but as part of Russia’s “hybrid warfare” against the West and must be suppressed.
