The EU is punishing citizens for expressing different views.
anyone who brings up facts, then that disturbs the narrative, then it can be seen as destabilizing. And the weird thing about Colonel Abu [Jacques BAUD] is that in his books and all, he almost only cites Western sources. The reason why the EU had to accuse him of being on pro-Russian television shows because he doesn't go on Russian programmes, because he doesn't want to be used by Russian propaganda for his arguments. So this guy, you know, he has to have all the objective analysis, he substantiates everything using Western sources, he doesn't want to appear too much on foreign media, so his analysis won't be used for propaganda purposes. You know, he does everything right. And he's sanctioned. I mean, if they can take him, they can take anyone now.
[. . .]
you have all this continuous, never-ending search for enemies within. And now, of course, that Europe risks fragmenting. This is going to be put on steroids. Anyone who doesn't conform could be an enemy within. And that means your loyalties are with the opposing side, with the enemy. And that's what they refer to as pro-Russian. It's that you don't hate them enough that you don't condemn them, you don't fall in line with the narrative.
- The European Union COUNCIL DECISION (CFSP) 2025/2572 of 15 December 2025
- Sanctioned by the EU: Jacques Baud, a former Swiss army colonel and strategic analyst
- Sanctioned by the EU: Diana Panchenko, an Ukrainian journalist and TV presenter – awarded the "Journalist of the Year" by the Ukrainian program "Person of the Year-2020".
It's really an attack on the social media and on people like you actually in the fact now but indirectly it's through people who you've interviewed and so it we we have first of all as a personal side of it. Somebody who sanctions becomes basically an outlaw. I mean we going back to the middle ages. No. Somebody has been told that he has no right anymore or she has no right. I mean they don't have bank accounts anymore. They can't work. they can't have any enterprises. Uh in other words, they have no income. They cannot travel and things like this one. And it's virtually impossible for them to take a legal challenge. It is so difficult. And that's probably why they also use the European Union for it because it's hid behind a wall of of of this European Union. You know, we shouldn't forget what happens here really is uh is a complete denial of the rule of law and here the council is the is a lawmaker and the judge at the same time and u when you look at the Lisbon treaty that then any decisions which are taken by the council on foreign relations and that's part of the foreign relations council uh cannot be challenged in the European Court of Justice. So I mean if you have basically a situation where where like in all kingdoms you know where Henry VII decides what happens to his wives and nobody can say anything against it.
[. . .]
it's such a flagrant breach of rule of law and such a flag you know double standards and hypocrisy here that I think we should all it's the duty of deputy deputies to protect the people who voted for us that we maintain our standards of rule of law democracy because you know basically it's it's an attack on our own democracy
[. . .]
I think we act act like in the middle ages I tell you these people are outlaws there is there are there you know already that when you see these very severe drastic penalties they get, there's no time limit. You know when you go to a court they say oh you three months hard labor or whatever or maybe you get lifetime but you get a time, but here when we say even going to prison you get a time, but here there is no time limit I mean it's a strange thing you're basically outlawed for life I mean if you there is no way to say after 3 months it's lifted you know 3 months my parents will finance me and then afterwards I can buy buy bread again, because you can't buy bread now and it's so absurd the whole thing that there is no outcry for it. This is probably what worries me most. Europe with all this war rhetoric and with all this hate and with all this self-righteousness basically destroys itself.
Switzerland has a government and companies that are eager to follow the instructions of Brussels apparently. I thought we were an a neutral country but I experienced otherwise. So the consequences were quite heavy. From one day to the other, I started getting my my credit cards cancelled, my bank accounts closed, my crypto accounts closed. And you wanted your Swiss your Swiss bank account was closed
[. . .]
So internal Swiss transactions are being refused are being refused. Yes, completely. So, that's the very beginning of your nightmare. Then, if you are abroad when it happens and you don't have any credit cards, you don't have any means of payment and if you don't have cash with you, then you're lost. You are completely lost.
[. . .]
one part of the sanction is the freezing of your asset, the other part is the banning of entering, transiting and flying over European territory. And the third sanction is the interdiction. So it's forbidden to anybody to provide services or fund to a person's sanctions. So any business accepting your money would run the risk of infringing the sanctions. So people are just choosing to close everything you know. So and it becomes very difficult because even companies air airlines can refuse to take you as a passenger.
[. . .]
the European Council issues two documents. The first one is the decision sanctioning you that you have seen with the motives and everything. You received that thing into your inbox to your mailbox. Oh, no. I received it on the internet because if they if if they cannot hand it out to you or if they don't want to hand it out to to you, it's sufficient for them to publish it uh in the official journal of the European Union.
[. . .]
And then there's another paper that's the rules of the European Union and in 2024 they decided that they will implement sanctions for pro-Russian activities in Europe. And in that regular as they call it. So in that regime it is written and in the first article it's written the definition of European territory and it includes airspace specifically. So even though they would say okay now you can go home [to Switzerland] if you want but in in the rules in the regular month linked to the decision it says specifically that you can't fly back and if a company decide to board you and then to bring you back to Switzerland, you can't be sure that you will ever have the opportunity to go out of Switzerland.
[. . .]
the Europeans have been using this way of doing things for decades towards people's out people outside of Europe and they're now turning it into Europe. They're turning it on them on their own populations
[. . .]
the European Union will keep this thing indefinitely the Russian sanctions list even if the war comes to an end because they can now link it to Russia paying reparations or not they will keep this tool and they will put more and more people on it
[. . .]
try to have a bank account or something in a part of the world where they are not applying sanctions. So, uh, Asia, um, Arabic world, stuff like that. Yeah, it's not easy to open a bank account in a country that you're not a resident in, but it needs some research. It's it's a there are ways, but it is really cumbersome.
[. . .]
for people that are in crypto get out of benance and every those centralized platforms because they close it the minute you are on a sanction list you are unable to access any any of those platforms. So go on to externalize wallets, ledgers, treasures, whatever. Go there. Metam mask go there. And then really it the core of this and then yeah obviously social media platforms providers and stuff like that look for people that are outside of Europe as providers.
-
The European Union COUNCIL IMPLEMENTING REGULATION (EU) 2025/1278 of 26 June 2025
- Sanctioned by the EU: Nathalie Yamb, the first Swiss Citizen to be included on the sanctions list
- Youtube: Nathalie Yamb
- Sanctioned by the EU: Nathalie Yamb, the first Swiss Citizen to be included on the sanctions list
I systematically and consistently refused all the invitation on Russian media because I was I was saying that in the current mood that you have now in Europe, everything I would say on Russian media would be interpreted as propaganda and that would weaken the credibility of my my work. So I explained that to those who invited me that I have nothing against against Russia. I have nothing against nobody. In fact, I want to have kind of a scholar or academic approach to the conflict. And and given the this strange mindset we have right right now in Europe, I prefer not to appear on Russian media and therefore I have never appeared on Russian media. I mean, Russian media have taken some pieces, they downloaded somewhere and they take they took it over to to explain, but I never appeared on my own on Russian media.
[. . .]
if you look at my books are mostly Ukrainian and US sources mostly. I don't use Russian sources for the simple reason that I don't want to be accused of propagating propaganda.
[. . .]
assuming as I was really a propagandist assuming that, which I repeat I'm not, but assuming I would I were a propagandist not a crime there is no law neither in Europe nor in Belgium nor in Switzerland nor anywhere that private to make propaganda. So there is absolutely I made absolutely no crime and this decision in fact is not a legal decision. That's very important also to understand because that makes the thing very complex to go against. It's a political decision. It was the decision was taken by the European Council, and the European Council is basically the council of the ministers of the European Union period. It's there is absolutely no legal judgment. There's no tribunal. For that reason, I have I had no right to defend myself. I had no right to present my case. I have no right even to appeal to that.
[. . .]
in my case is that even if you don't breach any law even if you do everything right even if you make you pay attention that you want to be on the right side of the practice not even law but practice. Even though you can be sanctioned and that means that if, and lot of people told me, I mean, I have lot of parliamentarians from different countries calling me and asking exactly what happened and apparently they have even started to write letters to some government in Europe and in the European Union to say; well if Baud is sanctioned for that that means that freedom of expression doesn't exist anymore
[. . .]
I was interviewed by a journalist who used to live in East Germany and he told me well the situation you have now is the same as we had in East Germany with one difference in East Germany they used to warn people one week in advance. So European Union is worse than East Germany.
I'm intrigued by the EU silencing this retired Swiss uh military intelligence officer, Colonel Jacques Baud. What can you tell us about this? They they silenced him, meaning he's not allowed to speak out. He can't travel. They have seized his assets and his bank accounts and we are told he has no judicial recourse to the seizure. How can that possibly be? Well, because Europe is a dictatorship. I mean, it's a police state in every way, shape, and form.
sanctions are extrajudicial mechanism. There is no court. There is no hearing. There is no right to defense. There is no right for lawyer. Nothing. The foreign ministers of the EU countries come together. They have like a bunch a pile of paper with a lot of names, a lot of information which whom they don't really read I guess and they just decide on that okay let's agree to that entire package and within that package there was my name as well and that was offered by governments or by a politician or who whomsoever we think it was the German government and you don't have that right but with me that's by law by EU European law, you have the right to be to to defend yourself and for a proper court hearing defense everything before you get punished for something.
[. . .]
on a daily basis on a personal level it is by sanctioning me that technically sanctioned my family as well. my two newborn twins, my six-year-old child and my wife because that affects also their daily life. Our income is non-existent. The assets of my wife who has nothing to do with that are frozen as well. Her bank accounts her saved money. And my children are affected by that. I'm not allowed to pay my rent. I'm not allowed to pay my lawyer. I'm not allowed to nothing. But I'm getting still letters from the government to pay my taxes. So if it comes to taxes, you have to pay them in Germany.
[. . .]
they don't tell me that I say something wrong. I think what they're not happy with is the problem that I say it. The monopoly of information, the monopoly of of of of education, the monopoly of showing a different reality in this world. And that's how the European Union turned turned information itself into a militaristic tool and under the guise of defending democracy.
the EU is a very is a very actually fascinating project that is now going horribly wrong of member states that gave certain powers up in the treaty of Lisbon in other international through other international treaty instruments and de delegated these powers to the European Union. One of these powers is the is this common foreign and security policy. So the sad thing is that what they did levying sanctions against institutions, against companies, and individuals is legal in the sense that it is formally correctly done. It is the formal legality of this of these sanctions is given because the European Union kept to its own process internally that it's structured and laid out in order to levy them. Now that doesn't mean that the content of the sanctions is also adhering to legal norms and standard. On the contrary, the substance itself is is not only highly problematic, it is and I'm absolutely sure about this in contradicting human rights law and under certain circumstances maybe even humanitarian law, although probably rather not, but human rights law
[. . .]
any kind of totalitarian system, or going increasingly becoming totalitarian system, any one of those at some point will need to point the policies and weapons that are usually meant to guard the system toward the outside; needs to point it inward. And that's what we are seeing
[. . .]
Adolf Hitler at some point just declared that the acts that his government did were legal. They were called them that you just take the power and you just declare that things are legal. The EU is by no way by no stretch of the imagination yet at that point. But it is highly problematic that such actions are being taken. So don't take me wrong. The EU is not a Nazi state yet, but it needs to stop doing this.
[. . .]
we need to take political action. Judicial action can not fight a political system of repression. So the other thing is stand together. I mean connect with others create support groups, create support mechanisms for people who land on this sanctions regime because. Ff the European Union doesn't actually get it that it needs to stop this otherwise it undermined everything it stands for. If it doesn't get that then this repression regime will get worse and more and more and more people are going to land on that list and more and more lives will be abandoned. So what we need to do is to create mechanisms to at least help somehow in in these circumstances.
apparently my name was put on the sanction list by the French government. I'm not 100% sure about this, but this is apparently according to the available information, this is what happened. The thing is that apparently again the French government informed the Swiss government that I would be on that list. Now what happened at this stage is not really clear but what is certain is that the Swiss government didn't make any opposition on that because I'm on the sanction list. So there is something wrong that happened in the prior to the publication of the sanctions and apparently the Swiss government I mean at least it didn't impose itself to avoid my presence on the list. Let's put it that way. So, and now I think the Swiss government starts to realize that the sanctions that are applied to me start to be a problem. you know, Switzerland is a country that is doesn't belong to the EU and there are currently some let's say ideas of getting closer to the EU and we have now a set of treaties that need to be approved by the people in order to enhance the cooperation between Switzerland and the EU. But now my case come into the game and lot of people say well what why would we enhance our cooperation with the EU if the EU sanctions people like this without any due process by freezing assets and so on. In in Switzerland we are not far away from what you know in the US in terms of freedom of speech, freedom of opinion. You know the Swiss people vote for everything. We vote for literally everything. And therefore the freedom of opinion, the freedom of speech is something which is viewed very in a similar way as you do in the United States. And now the sanctions come here and people say well EU is just a dictatorship.
[. . .]
I was member of NATO as the Ukrainian crisis started in in 2014 and I was sent by NATO in the Ukraine because I was in charge of countering proliferation of small arms. And of course, everybody was asking where do the rebels get their weapons from? And so I was obviously observing the conflict. And I am also one of the UN experts on the rule of law and when the Ukrainian forces started to reorganize themselves, I was sent there. Now what triggered really the whole conflict and in fact what the mechanical effect of having the Russians entering Ukraine was the issue of the language. That triggered a revolution. Literally a revolution. [. . .] What happened is that in the first decision of the non-elected government in on the 23rd of February 2014, was to abolish the law that made the Russian language an official language. That's the trigger. And because already since 2012, you had a law, the law Kovalenko that made both Russian and Ukrainian official language, meaning that all interaction between citizens and the administration could occur in the two languages. Once one [Russian] was banned as an official language, then everybody had to use only Ukrainian. That's that's what happened. And when I was in Odessa in September 2014, that was the time where you had the whole, not just the Donbas because today we talk about the Donbas, but in fact the whole southern part of Ukraine including Odessa and the whole southern half of of Ukraine was in revolution literally.
[. . .]
the Ukrainian authorities managed to repress this revolution and you had only the Donbas that remained the stronghold of those rebels and that stayed until 2022. But the essence remains the same. That was in fact an insurrection of those Russian speaking people who are not allowed to use their language for official business if you want. But the Russian language was not forbidden. It's very important to say that.
[. . .]
Zelinsky had started three negotiation process with Russia all these three process were stopped by the Europeans. It's very interesting. I mean the first started on the very first day of the Russian operation and namely on the 25 of February 2022 and Zelinsky called the Swiss minister of foreign affairs in order to organize a peace conference on the very first day that was stopped by the European Union. And then there was the famous case that was also where you had the document published by the New York Times in March, April 2022 that was also stopped by uh mainly the Brits, I mean Boris Johnson, but also the Germans and the French. They also participated in stopping this initiative. That was an initiative of Zelinsky. And you had a third initiative from Zelinsky that came out in mid and August 2022 and that was also stopped by the Europeans.
[. . .]
the Russians have said that I mean after Zelinsky published his decree to prohibit any negotiation with Russia. The General Zurovvic the commander-in-chief of The Russian armed forces in Ukraine said, "Well, from now on, we'll not manage will not do big operations on the ground, but we'll wait for the enemy. We'll wait for the Ukrainian to advance and we'll grind them down."
[. . .]
sanctioning speech is totally contra productive. And that's exactly what's happening with me. I never had so many requests for interviews since I was sanctioned.
I was applied sanctions on the 15th of December, as you rightly said. I was not informed beforehand, so I was taken by surprise on the 15th of December. This is a political decision. It's not a judicial decision, meaning that I have never been in front of a court, I have never breached any law, I have never been accused to breach any law, I had not the opportunity hence to defend myself, I had not the opportunity to be defended or represented by a lawyer, I had not the opportunity to expose or to defend or present my case. I was not even presented to the case so far. So this is a unilateral decision of the privation of my freedom of movement, obviously. My freedom of, I would even say freedom of living, because as you rightly said, the sanctions have frozen my accounts in the EU, meaning that I cannot pay anything, I cannot pay my bills, I cannot buy food, I cannot buy, I don't know, gas for my car or whatever. This I'm totally since the 15th of December, I'm living out of the generosity of my neighbors, of the solidarity of people here in Brussels. I received a lot of requests for help. I mean, people wanting to help me within the European Union, in France, in the Netherlands, in Germany, in Switzerland, of course, and so on. But so far, I'm living on the generosity of people living in my neighborhood. Meaning that the EU, without any due process, have in fact removed my fundamental freedoms
YouTube's action against Neutrality Studies
This morning I woke up to the horrible news that my channel had been deleted by YouTube due to infringements on "Spam and deceptive practices". After 16 hours, I got it back. Here is the story.
There is no freedom of speach in Europe, in the European union, anymore.
- The Foreign Censorship Threat: How the European Union’s Digital Services Act Compels Global Censorship and Infringes on American Free Speech | Report
- The Foreign Censorship Threat, Part II: Europe's Decade-Long Campaign to Censor the Global Internet and How it Harms American Speech in the United States
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