The Second Panel:
Narratives and Reality of War
in Ukraine and Russia
Conference Proceedings
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| On the screen: Jacques Hogard during his speech. On the table; the panel moderator, José Catarino Soares. |
Introductory remarks by the panel moderador
The second panel of the Conference, and the first
session held in the afternoon, was dedicated to exploring the theme, Narratives and
Reality of War in Ukraine and Russia.
This topic aimed to delve into the complex and
multifaceted dimensions of the ongoing conflict, offering insights from various personal and national perspectives.
The panel was designed to bring together distinguished guest
speakers: Jacques Hogard (from France), Geoffrey Roberts (from Ireland), Michel
Collon (from Belgium), and Alastair Renfrew (from England, United Kingdom). The
session was to be moderated by José Catarino Soares (from Portugal).
Unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances arose as both
Michel Collon and Geoffrey Roberts fell ill at the last minute, so to speak.
Their health conditions deteriorated to such an extent that they were unable to
participate, even remotely via ZOOM.
Anticipating the possibility, however unlikely, of
last-minute absences, the conference organising committee had prudently invited
Rui Pereira and Sófia Smirnov, both from Portugal, to prepare substitute
presentations just-in-case.
Unfortunately, the sequence of misfortunes continued,
as Sófia Smirnov also became unwell shortly before the panel and was thus
unable to deliver her presentation.
Jacques Hogard is a French colonel and former parachutist of the
Foreign Legion. He is a military expert with a wealth of experience, having
served in various armed conflicts, including those in Djibouti, Somalia, Rwanda, and
Kosovo.
Colonel Jacques Hogard comes from a military family. His
father was General Jacques Hogard, and his brother is General Jean-François
Hogard, former director of DRSD (Direction du Renseignement et de la Sécurité
de la Défense), the French military security agency. He is also a nephew of
General Pierre de Bénouville, a hero of the French Resistance during the Second
World War.
After retiring from the military in 2000, Jacques Hogard
pursued a career in the private sector, founding companies specializing in
strategic intelligence and diplomacy, such as ÉPÉE and ESEI. He is also an
essayist and has written several books, including La guerre en Ukraine: Regard
critique sur les causes d’une tragédie (2024).
Rui Pereira is a Portuguese professor at the Lusófona University (Porto)
Faculty of Communication
and at the Faculty of Law and
Political Science of the same University. He is a former journalist with a career
of 20 years (including 13 at the weekly newspaper Expresso) and holds a
PhD in Sociology of Communication and Information from the University of Minho.
He teaches Communication Sciences, leads the first cycle of the degree and is a
researcher at the university's CICANT centre. His research areas include the
relations between systems of power and technology, ethics, communication
theory, media literacy and critical thinking. He published 6 books and numerous
book chapters and papers. He is also the author and/or participant of plays and
artistic works in the areas of text, music, theater and performing arts.
Sófia Smirnov (pseudonym) is the owner and main animator of the
Portuguese independent news Telegram channel of the same name. Her
professional career was essentially in the financial area as a risk analyst and
as a teacher. She has a university degree in 3 different areas, one of which is
European Studies and hence his interest in Geopolitics.
Alastair Renfrew is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature
at Durham University (England, United Kingdom). He is a philologist with a
broad spectrum of research interests, including Russian Literature, Russian Cinema,
and Soviet Cinema. He is a specialist in literary and critical theory, with a
particular focus on Scottish Literature, Russian literature, and the work of
Mikhail Bakhtin, a field in which he published several influential books. He is
known among students for a memorable teaching philosophy, encapsulated by the
words Read and Think, emphasizing
critical engagement with texts.
He made his debut as a novelist this year, under the
pen name of Alessandro del Guado, with a novel entitled Pechorin,
set in 19th-century Russia, from St. Petersburg to the Caucasus and beyond.
José Catarino Soares, serving as moderator for this panel, is among the Four Musketeers for Peace who organise this Conference. He holds the position of coordinator professor (retired) in polytechnic higher education and has expertise in sociology and linguistics. In 2013, he established the blog Tertúlia Orwelliana [Orwellian conversation], where he is the principal contributor. In August 2023, he published the book Dispelling the Artificial Mist of War: a roadmap for ending the wars in Ukraine, peace in Europe and universal nuclear disarmament, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the underlying causes of the wars in Ukraine, examines the rationale presented by all parties involved, and explores potential political and diplomatic solutions to the conflict, within the framework of a European security architecture that guarantees peace and is geared towards universal nuclear disarmament.
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Segundo Painel:
Narrativas e
Realidade da Guerra
na Ucrânia e na Rússia
Actas da Conferência
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| On the left, speaker Alastair Renfrew during his presentation. On the right,panel moderator José Catarino Soares |
O segundo painel da conferência, e a primeira sessão realizada à tarde, foi dedicado a explorar o tema Narrativas e Realidade da Guerra na Ucrânia e na Rússia.
Este tópico teve como objectivo aprofundar as dimensões complexas e multifacetadas do conflito em curso, oferecendo análises de várias perspectivas pessoais e nacionais.
O painel tinha sido pensado para reunir oradores de renome: Jacques Hogard (da França), Geoffrey Roberts (da Irlanda), Michel Collon (da Bélgica) e Alastair Renfrew (da Inglaterra, Reino Unido). A sessão seria moderada por José Catarino Soares (de Portugal).
Infelizmente, surgiram circunstâncias imprevistas, uma vez que tanto Michel Collon como Geoffrey Roberts adoeceram à última hora, por assim dizer. O estado de saúde deles deteriorou-se a tal ponto que não puderam participar, nem mesmo remotamente via ZOOM.
No entanto, prevendo a possibilidade, por mais improvável que fosse, de ausências de última hora, a comissão organizadora da conferência tinha prudentemente convidado Rui Pereira e Sófia Smirnov, ambos de Portugal, para prepararem, por precaução, apresentações substitutas.
Infelizmente, a sequência de infortúnios continuou, pois Sófia Smirnov também adoeceu pouco antes do painel e, por esse motivo, não pôde fazer a sua apresentação.
Apesar destes desafios, o painel prosseguiu com êxito. O Coronel Jacques Hogard e o Professor Rui Pereira fizeram as suas comunicações, ambos via Zoom, enquanto o Professor Alastair Renfrew fez sua comunicação presencialmente.
As suas contribuições garantiram que a sessão mantivesse o seu foco e proporcionasse novas e valiosas achegas, incluindo uma rica discussão entre Alastair Renfrew, outros oradores convidados e várias pessoas da assistência.
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Sobre os oradores e o moderador
Jacques Hogard é um coronel francês e ex-paraquedista da Legião Estrangeira. É um especialista militar com vasta experiência, tendo participado em vários conflitos armados, incluindo os do Djibuti, Somália, Ruanda e Kosovo.
O coronel Jacques Hogard vem de uma família de militares. O seu pai foi o general Jacques Hogard e o seu irmão é o general Jean-François Hogard, ex-diretor da DRSD (Direction du Renseignement et de la Sécurité de la Défense), a agência de segurança militar francesa. É também sobrinho do general Pierre de Bénouville, um herói da Resistência Francesa durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial.
Depois de se reformar do exército em 2000, Jacques Hogard iniciou uma carreira no sector privado, fundando empresas especializadas em inteligência estratégica e diplomacia, como a ÉPÉE e a ESEI. É também ensaísta e escreveu vários livros, incluindo La guerre en Ukraine: Regard critique sur les causes d’une tragédie (2024).
Rui Pereira é um professor português que ensina na Faculdade de Comunicação da Universidade Lusófona (Porto) e na Faculdade de Direito e Ciência Política da mesma universidade. Foi jornalista, com uma carreira de 20 anos (incluindo 13 no semanário Expresso), e é doutorado em Sociologia da Comunicação e da Informação pela Universidade do Minho. Ensina Ciências da Comunicação, coordena o primeiro ciclo da licenciatura e é investigador no centro CICANT da sua universidade. As suas áreas de investigação incluem as relações entre sistemas de poder e tecnologia, ética, teoria da comunicação, literacia mediática e pensamento crítico. Publicou 6 livros e numerosos capítulos de livros e artigos. É também autor e/ou participante em peças de teatro e obras artísticas nas áreas do texto, música, teatro e artes performativas.
Sófia Smirnov (pseudónimo) é a proprietária e principal animadora do canal Telegram independente português de notícias com o mesmo nome. A sua carreira profissional desenvolveu-se essencialmente na área financeira, como analista de risco e professora. É licenciada em três áreas diferentes, uma das quais é Estudos Europeus, daí o seu interesse pela geopolítica.
Alastair Renfrew é professor de Inglês e Literatura Comparada na Universidade de Durham (Inglaterra, Reino Unido). É um filólogo com um amplo leque de interesses de investigação, incluindo Literatura Russa, Cinema Russo e Cinema Soviético. É especialista em teoria literária e crítica, com especial enfoque na Literatura Escocesa, Literatura Russa e na obra de Mikhail Bakhtin, área em que publicou vários livros influentes. É conhecido entre os estudantes pela sua filosofia de ensino memorável, resumida nas palavras «Leia e Pense», que estimula o envolvimento crítico com os textos. Fez a sua estreia como romancista este ano, sob o pseudónimo de Alessandro del Gualdo, com um romance intitulado Pechorin, cuja intriga decorre na Rússia do século XIX, de São Petersburgo até ao Cáucaso, entre outros lugares.
José
Catarino Soares,
moderador deste painel, integra o grupo dos Quatro Mosqueteiros pela Paz, organizadores desta Conferência. É professor coordenador (aposentado)
do ensino superior politécnico, sociólogo e linguista. Em 2013, fundou o blogue
Tertúlia Orwelliana, assumindo desde então o papel de
principal dinamizador e colaborador. Em Agosto de 2023, lançou o livro Dissipando a Névoa
Artificial da Guerra: um roteiro para o fim das guerras na Ucrânia, a paz na
Europa e o desarmamento nuclear universal, que apresenta uma análise aprofundada das causas contribuintes das
duas guerras na Ucrânia (2014-2022 e 2022-????, respectivamente), examina criticamente as
justificações apresentadas pelas partes envolvidas (beligerantes e co-beligerantes)
e propõe soluções político-diplomáticas para a resolução deste conflito armado, no âmbito de uma arquitectura de segurança europeia garantidora da paz e direccionada para o desarmamento nuclear universal.
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| Speaker Jacques Hogard (on screen) being briefly introduced by moderator José Catarino Soares (at the table) |
Speech
by
Jacques Hogard
(colonel, geopolitical consultant, non-fiction writer)
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished organizers and guests of this Peace Conference organized on the initiative of our Portuguese friends in Lisbon, I naturally regret not being physically among you today, but I warmly thank Professor José Catarino Soares, with whom I have been corresponding since this summer, for his invitation.
We are all driven by the urgent need to put an end to this absurd war in Eastern Europe, to restore peace there, and to protect our continent and the world from the terrible devastation wrought by the First and Second World Wars.
As an old soldier, I say this without hesitation: dialogue, respect for others, and diplomacy are in every way preferable to war and its accompanying human and material destruction. This war in Ukraine, which I would like to remind you could have ended, should have ended if in March 2022 the West, through the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, had not set about sabotaging the agreements reached in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine, this war in Ukraine will, I hope, soon come to an end.
Indeed, the military situation on the ground is now very critical, not to say close to catastrophic for the Kiev armed forces. Every day, every week, the slow advance of the Russian army and its allies from the republics of Lugansk and Donetsk continues, sparing the lives of Russian soldiers but inexorable. The last barriers are falling on the road to the Dnieper. The capture of POKROVSK (KRASNOARMEYSK) is an important event that foreshadows others currently underway or to come, whether in the KONSTANTINOVKA (and IVANOPOLYE) sector, the SIVERSK sector, or the KRASNY LIMAN sector, Russian pressure is mounting on the courageous but exhausted Ukrainian troops, who are lacking everything from food and ammunition to medical evacuations and even leaders! In the ZAPORIZHZHIA Oblast, Ukrainian troops are retreating. It is in the HULIAIPOLE sector that the Russian advance is the fastest and most spectacular, heading towards the HAITCHUL river [or Haitjul, also spelled Gaychur].
And every day brings news of new towns and key locations falling into the hands of the Russian army. Faced with this systematic war of attrition imposed on it by the Russian army, the biggest problem for the Ukrainian army is its critical shortage of men, infantry fighters, and capabilities to deal with the incessant swarms of Russian wire-guided drones, which are far superior to those used by the Ukrainians, whose morale is being severely tested, even as information about the corruption scandal comes to light in Kiev and around the world, implicating a number of ministers and the close circle of their president, who is on borrowed time.
The future looks increasingly bleak for President Zelensky and his government, several of whose ministers have had to resign or even flee abroad.
Meanwhile, diplomacy is not
standing still. Despite difficulties and some verbal sparring, the 28-point
peace plan drawn up by Steve Wittkoff and Jared KUSHNER, on the American side,
and Kirill Dmitriev on the Russian side, is now public. In France, AFP [Agence
France Press] has presented all 28 points, which can be grouped into four main
areas:
●Peace in Ukraine
●Security guarantees
●The European architecture
●The restoration of Russian-American relations
The most sensitive points obviously concern territorial control of the Russian-speaking areas liberated by the Russians and, of course, the guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO in the future.
Kirill DMITRIEV says he is
reasonably optimistic because, he said, for the first time, Moscow's position
is really being heard.
― Ukraine had received the draft WITKOFF-KUSHNER Peace Plan and was ready to work on it
― But that it nevertheless wished to reiterate the following clear and unchanging red lines:
o Ukraine will
never accept formal or any other recognition of the transfer of Ukrainian
territory to Russia.
o Ukraine will
never renounce its right to self-defense or the size and capabilities of its
armed forces.
o Ukraine will not accept any infringement of Ukrainian sovereignty or its right to choose its alliances!
And all is not won yet, when we look at the attitude of the European Union member states (except for Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic!):
― Mark RUTTE, NATO Secretary General, has announced a new $500 million military aid program for ZELINSKY, provided by the Nordic countries (NORWAY, SWEDEN, DENMARK, FINLAND) and the three Baltic states.... And this despite the corruption scandal rocking ZELENSKY’s regime and the intense diplomatic efforts of the United States to put an end to this bloody and absurd war.
― The provocative theatrical
show put on by MACRON and ZELENSKY in Paris, signing a highly improbable letter
of intent on an equally hypothetical future delivery (in the distant future!)
of more than 100 RAFALE fighter jets to Ukraine, which no one knows how to pay
for or at what rate to produce.
We have therefore reached a major turning point:
― The war in Ukraine has been lost by the Zelensky regime, which had promised its people peace, development, and the eradication of corruption!
― But it has also been lost by NATO and the European Union.
While NATO is nothing and can do nothing without the United States, the EU, sensing that its existence is threatened, at least in its current form, is struggling as much as it can to thwart peace in Ukraine and force this unfortunate country to sacrifice its population, down to the last Ukrainian.
Unfortunately, as a French patriot, I can only note the betrayal of my country's political and military authorities, who are espousing interests that are not ours and submitting to a supranational structure that has no democratic legitimacy and seeks to subjugate European nations, in defiance of their identity and fundamental freedoms.
That is why it is essential that all Europeans who love their country, our common civilization inherited from the Greek and Roman worlds and shaped by the Christian faith, rise everywhere to bring to their senses those responsible for these crazy warlike excesses with no basis other than their deadly ideology.
Today’s conference is a concrete manifestation of this, and I am happy and proud to participate in it in my own modest way. Once again, a heartfelt thank you to the organizers!
Thank you for your attention.
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| À l'écran, l'orateur Jacques Hogard; à la table, le modérateur José Catarino Soares |
communication
de
Jacques Hogard
(colonel, consultant en géopolitique, auteur de non-fiction)
Mesdames,
Messieurs, Distingués organisateurs et invités de cette Conférence de la Paix
organisée à l’initiative de nos amis portugais à Lisbonne, je regrette
naturellement de ne pas être physiquement parmi vous aujourd’hui mais je
remercie vivement de son invitation le Professeur José Catarino Soares avec qui
je correspond depuis cet été.
Nous
sommes tous animés par l’ardente nécessité de mettre un terme à cette guerre
absurde dans l’Est de l’Europe, d’y rétablir la paix et de préserver notre
continent et le monde des ravages épouvantables tels que les Première et
Deuxième Guerre mondiales les ont produits.
Le
déjà vieux soldat que je suis le dit sans hésitation : le dialogue, le
respect de l’autre et la diplomatie sont en tout point préférables à la guerre
et son cortège de destructions humaines, et matérielles.
Cette
guerre en Ukraine dont je tiens à rappeler qu’elle aurait pu cesser, qu’elle
aurait dû cesser si en mars 2022 les Occidentaux à travers la personne du
Premier ministre britannique de l’époque, Boris Johnson, ne s’étaient employés
à saboter les accords établis en Turquie entre Russes et Ukrainiens, cette
guerre en Ukraine est amenée je l’espère à se terminer bientôt.
En
effet, la situation militaire sur le terrain est à présent très critique, pour
ne pas dire proche de la catastrophe pour les forces armées de Kiev. Chaque
jour, chaque semaine, la percée lente jusqu’ici, parce qu’économe en vies
humaines des soldats russes, mais inexorable de l’armée russe et de ses alliés
des républiques de Lougansk et Donetsk se poursuit. Les derniers verrous
tombent sur la route qui conduit au Dniepr. La prise de POKROVSK
(KRASNOARMEISK) est un évènement important qui en préfigure d’autres en cours
ou à venir, que ce soit dans le secteur de KONSTANTINOVKA (et IVANOPOLYE), dans
celui de SIVERSK, ou de KRASNY LIMAN, la pression russe s’accentue sur des
troupes ukrainiennes courageuses mais épuisées, manquant de tout, de vivres, de
munitions, d’évacuations sanitaires, et même de chefs !
Dans
l’Oblast de ZAPORIJIE, les troupes ukrainiennes se retirent. C’est dans le
secteur de HOULIAÏPOLE que l’avancée russe est la plus rapide, la plus
spectaculaire en direction de la rivière HAïTCHOUL. Et chaque jour apporte la
nouvelle de nouvelles localités, de nouveaux points clés du terrain qui tombent
aux mains de l’armée russe.
Face
à cette guerre d’attrition systématique que lui impose l’armée russe, le plus
gros problème de cette armée ukrainienne est son manque crucial d’hommes, de
combattants d’infanterie et de capacités à faire face notamment aux nuées incessantes
de drones filoguidés russes, très supérieurs à ceux qu’utilisent les Ukrainiens
dont le moral est mis à très rude épreuve, alors même que les informations
concernant le scandale de la corruption éclate au grand jour à Kiev et dans le
monde entier, impliquant nombre de ministres et l’entourage proche de leur
président en sursis.
L’avenir
est de plus en plus sombre pour le président Zelensky et son gouvernement dont
plusieurs ministres ont dû démissionner voire prendre la fuite à l’étranger.
Pendant
ce temps, la diplomatie n’est pas inactive. Malgré des difficultés et quelques
joutes verbales, le Plan de Paix en 28 points établi côté américain par Steve
WITKOFF et Jared KUSHNER, et côté russe par Kirill
DMITRIEV est à présent public. En France, l’AFP [Agence France Press] en a
présenté l’ensemble des 28 points que l’on peut regrouper en 4 grands
axes :
●La
Paix en Ukraine
●Les
garanties de sécurité
●L’architecture
européenne
●Le
rétablissement des relations russo-américaines
Les
points les plus sensibles concernent évidemment le contrôle territorial des
zones russophones libérées par les Russes et bien sûr la garantie de la non-appartenance
de l’Ukraine future à l’OTAN.
Kirill
DMITRIEV se dit raisonnablement optimiste car a-t-il dit, pour la 1ère
fois la position de Moscou est réellement entendue.
Kiev
a été bien sûr informée, les Européens également.
Une
très forte pression est exercée par le président TRUMP et le vice-président
VANCE sur ZELENSKY pour qu’il accepte ce Plan de Paix dans une attitude
réaliste et pragmatique.
TRUMP menace de cesser immédiatement tout approvisionnement en armes mais aussi en Renseignement si ZELENSKY ne signe pas l’Accord Cadre de ce Plan de Paix d’ici jeudi prochain 27 novembre.
Il
est à noter que Kiev aurait demandé en tout premier lieu que la clause
anti-corruption soit retirée au profit d’une amnistie couvrant toute la période
de la guerre ! Cette anecdote en dit long sur l’attitude des dirigeants
ukrainiens !
Bien
sûr, tout n’est pas gagné si l’on en juge de la réaction de la représentante
adjointe de l’Ukraine à l’ONU Kristina HALVISHYN, qui a déclaré que :
―
L’Ukraine avait bien reçu le projet de Plan de Paix WITKOFF- KUSHNER et était
prête à y travailler
―
Mais qu’elle tenait toutefois à rappeler les lignes rouges, claires et
immuables, suivantes :
o L’Ukraine
n’acceptera jamais de reconnaissance formelle ou autre de cession de
territoires ukrainiens aux Russes,
o L’Ukraine
ne renoncera jamais à son droit à l’autodéfense ni sur la taille et les
capacités de ses forces armées,
o L’Ukraine
n’acceptera pas d’atteinte à la souveraineté ukrainienne, et à son droit de
choisir ses alliances !...
Et
tout n’est pas gagné non plus, lorsqu’on regarde l’attitude des Etats de
l’Union Européenne (Hongrie, Slovaquie et République Tchèque
exceptés !) :
―
Mark RUTTE le secrétaire général de l’OTAN annonce un nouveau programme d’aide
militaire de 500 millions de Dollars à ZELENSKY fournie par les Etats Nordiques
(NORVEGE, SUEDE, DANEMARK, FINLANDE) et les 3 Pays Baltes…Et ceci malgré le
scandale de corruption qui secoue le régime de ZELENSKY et les efforts
diplomatiques intenses des États-Unis pour mettre un terme à cette guerre aussi
sanglante qu’absurde.
― Le show théatral provocateur de MACRON et ZELENSKY signant à Paris une très improbable lettre d’intention sur une non moins hypothétique livraison ultérieure (aux calendes grecques !) de plus de 100 chasseurs RAFALE à l’Ukraine dont personne ne sait comment les payer ni à quelle cadence les produire.
― Les déclarations démentielles du général MANDON chef d’état-major des armées françaises s’adressant aux Maires de France pour leur transmettre son obsession russophobe, sa volonté d’abandonner toute souveraineté et se soumettre à l’euroatlantisme belliqueux de Bruxelles et de leur faire part de ses prédictions ridicules du futur déclenchement d’une guerre de la Russie contre la France dans 4 ans et donc, la nécessité d’admettre dès à présent la future hécatombe de la jeunesse française, comme si nous étions déjà remis de celles de 1914-1918 et de 1939-1945 et n’avions pas à nous préoccuper plutôt de la menace existentielle pesant sur la France : l’islamisation de la France, de sa société et de ses institutions !
Nous
voici donc parvenus à un tournant majeur :
― La guerre en Ukraine est perdue par le régime Zelensky qui avait pourtant promis à son peuple : paix, développement et éradication de la corruption !
― Mais elle est perdue également pour l’OTAN et pour l’Union Européenne.
Si l’OTAN n’est rien et ne peut rien sans les États-Unis, l’UE sentant bien son existence menacée, en tout cas sous sa forme actuelle, se débat autant qu’elle peut pour faire échouer la Paix en Ukraine et contraindre ce malheureux pays à sacrifier sa population, jusqu’au dernier Ukrainien.
Malheureusement,
en tant que Français patriote, je ne peux que constater la trahison des
autorités politiques et militaires de mon pays, épousant des intérêts qui ne
sont pas les nôtres, et se soumettant à une structure supra étatique qui n’a
aucune légitimité démocratique et qui cherche à vassaliser les nations
européennes, au mépris de leur identité et de leurs libertés fondamentales.
Voilà
pourquoi il est essentiel que tous les Européens amoureux de leur pays, de
notre civilisation commune héritée des mondes grec et romain et façonnée par la
foi chrétienne se lèvent partout pour rappeler à la raison les responsables de
ces folles dérives guerrières sans fondement autre que leur idéologie
mortifère.
Cette
conférence aujourd’hui en est une manifestation concrète, et je suis heureux et
fier d’y participer modestement. Encore un vibrant merci aux
organisateurs !
Je vous remercie de votre attention
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| Speaker Rui Pereira (on screen) being briefly introduced by panel moderator José Catarino Soares (at the table) |
An introduction to the hypothesis of a “Novel Cognitive-Rooted Communicational Experimentalism”
by
Rui Pereira
(former journalist, university professor, non-fiction writer)
I want to thank for this invitation, to salute all my colleagues and of course the audience.
This text is a short version of a more extended ongoing work seeking to contribute to some clarification regarding the use of the expression “cognitive warfare.” This term is increasingly employed to designate disinformation operations and conventional well-known propaganda actions, particularly within scenarios of political, commercial, and, above all, military conflict.
But, alongside the conventional modalities of these types of operations, which military strategists designate as “psychological operations,” the “communicational war front” has also been undergoing reformulation. It can now be thought as what I propose to be understood as a novel “cognitive-rooted communicational experimentalism.”
In simpler words, this reflection attempts to understand, to some extent, the reasons why we lack, for instance concerning Ukraine, what I term “better lies.”
In recent history, we all recall the lie under the pretext of which Iraq was bombed and the paramount careful discursive extension that involved that episode of the technique of governance through falsehood — a hallmark of our “Western” era. Satellite photographs were forged. Test tubes were subsequently displayed by General Colin Powell at the United Nations Security Council as samples of “chemical substances”. That is to say, the falsehood was laboriously constructed, disseminated, refined, and sung in harmonious chorus by much of the world we call the West.
2
By contrary, belonging to another geopolitical Era, the falsification of facts concerning the Russian military intervention in Ukraine on 24 February 2022 revealed itself, almost without exception, as a poorly designed operation of charlatanism, served by disparate lies that contradict themselves and provoke astonishment in any mind less anaesthetised than is desirable by the prevailing European and North American powers.
Let’s just consider one of many other possible samples
of these low-quality lies: the bizarre Western declaration concerning the
impotence, unpreparedness, and lack of training and instruction of the Russian
military. We remember them being described as having to learn from Wikipedia
how to use their Kalashnikovs. We remember how they lacked socks and boots.
We know how this version ended. It culminated in the thesis of the “Russian threat” which, defying all this incompetence and impotence, could now reach Lisbon or Porto, if we do not cut Social State expenditures to become heavily militarized states.
3.
The question that arises, therefore, is this: why do we not have higher-quality falsehoods today as we had on the Iraq’s days? And here enters my proposal concerning what I designate as cognitive-rooted communicational experimentalism.
To support this argument, I invoke two sets of reasons. Firstly, the conceptual mutation of the Empire’s foreign policy, from an unrealistic policy of omnipotent hyperpower, towards a realism in international relations, based on a pair of principles: 1) that of hostility and violence towards less powerful adversaries, and 2) that of the racketing mafia-style extortion of economic resources from the so-called vassal States.
In the first case, we find aggressions in preparation or already underway, for example, in Latin America, the case of Venezuela, but not exclusively. In the second, we find, among many other possible examples, the recent «authorisation from the United States for Europe to purchase weaponry from them to deliver to the Kiev regime» (it is astonishing, but this “development” was reported as such on our television broadcasts).
Let us consider this as examples of the contextual element for the foundational formulation I propose here: the idea that we are facing a cognitive-rooted communicational experimentalism. What I call cognitive-rooted communicational experimentalism is both an improvisation and a grand experiment in the field of mass conditioning, resulting from two proximate factors rooted in a distant tradition:
1) More
recently, the exploitation of the possibilities of a new form of combat, a new
weapon for producing pseudo-reality effects, the so-called “cognitive warfare,” made possible by the consequences
of the massified use of new technical apparatuses of accelerated, permanent,
and uninterrupted repetitive connection.
2) More remotely, those familiar with matters such as the so-called MK-ULTRA and MK-SEARCH projects developed from the 1950s to the 1980s by the CIA — programmes of mental experimentation into what is trivially called “brainwashing,” conducted with the complicity of American and Canadian universities, on mental patients or on captured enemy prisoners, termed “expendable individuals”. Whoever is familiar to this facts will understand the interest in the incessant repetition of messages for the refinement of manipulation techniques (see in this regard the work of Gordon Thomas, Journey into Madness — The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse).
In our time, the dromology of instantaneity, deterritorialisation, and the algorithmic fragmentation of new techniques for reproducing and disseminating messages allow for the exploitation of vast agnotological hypotheses — that is, the production and exploitation on a large scale of selective memory and induced ignorance tested during the pandemic of recent years.
It was proven that it was possible to control a considerable part of humanity through a reiterated threat, subjected to self-contradictory directives, in a new media technical experiment, namely, the practice of monothematic saturation coverage for entire years. In this aspect, it was, as stated, a grand experiment in mass manipulation.
The media — and journalism in particular — were thus able to cross two conventional boundaries without upheaval, and with that, two of its essential foundations: 1) the boundary between information and opinion, and 2) more importantly, the boundary between the real and the fictional, reinforcing the strategy of the “plausible” as a sufficient condition for reporting and as a necessary resource for forging this unreal framing of reality itself.
The experience of COVID-19, the communicational acceleration, and the micro-platforms of its consumption and dissemination—the apparatuses I designate as “furtive technologies,”such as the laptop, the smartphone, the iPad, etc., associated with sensationalism as a strategy in the media market equivalent to the so-called populism in the electoral market — all this has been combined with the spectrum of cognitive consequences of all these dizzying transformations.
A NATO document (Cognitive Warfare, coordinated by François du Cluzel, and produced by the Alliance's Innovation Hub), dated June-November 2020, specifically mentions the alterations in the human brain provoked by the widespread use of new digital technical machines.
The document speaks of a great “mutation of the human brain.” The principal characteristics of this transformation consist of the reduction of attention capacity, the reduction of memory faculty, and losses in the associative capacity and the ability to establish relationships between data and information by the human brain. All this, the document further points out, contributes to and results in a growing difficulty in grasping, elaborating, and understanding complex ideas in depth and detail.
Works such as The Fabric of Digital Cretins – The Dangers of Digital Screens for Our Children by neuroscientist Michel Desmurget converge in the same direction, analysing in detail the cognitive dramas of the screen immersion which we live in and the actual lesions to human intelligence thus being produced.
The exploitation of this transformation is being carried by neuroscientists, psychiatrists and psychologists, military personnel, and marketing and design experts. The predominance of the image over the word allows for the flooding of the imagination with images, thereby colonising the very imaginary, both on the level of individual minds and on the level of what is called the social imaginary or the collective imaginary of entire communities.
It is in this concrete space that, I contend, the so-called cognitive warfare is exercised, manifested in political communication in general, and which 1) differs from more conventional propaganda strategies and 2) materialises “par excellence” in scenarios of armed conflict within the more general framework of what is understood as “hybrid warfare,” but not exclusively.
The most emblematic example of this new policy of communicationally is perhaps that protagonised by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who, upon his election as President of the Republic, while simultaneously starring in a television series during the real electoral campaign for the Presidency, when responding to an international journalist who wanted to know if he felt prepared to occupy in reality the post he had just occupied as a character in the television series, simply replied: “What’s the difference?”
This derealisation features what may be thought as the interval between ontology and epistemology, treated by the late American philosopher John Searle, having the property of widening almost indefinitely the “plausible”—that is, what can be said under circumstances of non-confirmability and irrationality which are reconfiguring logical-cognitive boundaries under the set of the aforementioned threats.
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| On the screen: Rui Pereira during his speech |
I believe it is to this vast experimental field that we owe the fact that we do not have better falsehoods today, capable of constituting something more than what might appear as mere insults directed by mediocre propagandists of the hour, against the intelligence of the public.
It is true that there is also the need to occupy millions of hours of broadcast and thousands of newspaper pages or endless digital terabytes, and for this purpose, all co-optable mediocrity will scarcely suffice.
But, if the analytical hypothesis I propose here — to view the question also through the prism of this experimental and intentional character —I s correct, there will certainly be people thinking about this situation from a scientific viewpoint and from the perspective of a renewed grand experiment in human behaviour and its manipulation.
Thank you very much for your attention.
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| Sófia Smirnov |
The Business of Ukrainian
Surrogacy Clinics
by
Sófia Smirnov
(risk analyst, geopolitician)
In early 2020, a Portuguese TV channel aired a report titled Portuguese Pay 40,000 Euros for Surrogate Mothers in
Ukraine.
It immediately recalled international news from two or
three years earlier about BioTexCom, a Kiev-based surrogacy clinic. This
clinic was accused by local authorities of trafficking minors and organs,
fertilization fraud, document forgery, and tax evasion.
Regarding the fate of the final product—the babies treated as
commodities—I am unaware of any national or international report detailing what
happens to those rejected by the quality control departments of these fertility
clinics. These clinics have become one of Ukraine’s largest businesses in
recent years.
However, something is known and reflected in various international
reports—and even denounced to the UN before the Russian “Special Military Operation.” According to the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in an interview with AFP
(Agence France Press), Ukraine had at least 100,000 disabled children living in
orphanages, boarding schools, or institutions. This network, described as
opaque and dysfunctional, made Ukraine an unusual case with the highest number
of disabled children in Europe. This was not a consequence of the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986 but a 21st-century reality within a Europe that claims to
uphold human and children’s rights. It occurred in a European nation recognized
for its commitment to democracy and European values.
This raises a pressing question: why are there so many disabled children
in Ukraine?
The same AFP report quoted NGO representatives and human rights
defenders warning about the risks of trafficking faced by these children, many
of whom were left vulnerable amid bombings and intense fighting. This is
unsurprising, given that human rights organizations had previously found these
children confined in cribs, living in deplorable, filthy conditions for years.
Most of these abandoned children were rescued by the Russian army, with
some taken to temporary institutions in Crimea and others to Russia. They were
given safety, food, and — remarkably — some experienced what they had never
known before: a family, love, and education. These are basic rights that every
child in the world deserves.
The immediate result was Western media and European leaders, who
had long ignored the inhumane situation of these children, accusing Russia of
kidnapping them.
Ironically, the same media that whitewashes and promotes the most
disturbing business of the 21st century — the manufacturing and sale of
children using impoverished women’s bodies — denounces Russia. This business
discards defective babies into orphanages, all justified by the urgent desire
of affluent Western women to become mothers — mothers of perfect, blue-eyed
children, after all. For many months, these women could choose the baby’s eye
color or sex before purchase — an option still technically available but no
longer explicitly advertised on the appealing, pastel-colored websites
featuring smiling women portrayed as industrial surrogacy factories.
I have followed the issues surrounding Ukrainian surrogacy clinics for
several years, and it has always seemed an aberration. I realized that Ukraine
was not only an indirect weapon against Russia since the “Orange Revolution” so-called but also a
hiding place for various exploitative businesses and experiments backed by
Western powers.
My investigations revealed that the first Ukrainian clinics and
laboratories were funded by North American and Israeli capital. Therefore, it
was unsurprising that the 2020 TV report referenced Genesis 16, specifically the story of Sarah and Abraham. The slogan “Sarah’s handmaids” is a Zionist motif,
embraced even by fervent feminists and some left-wing parties that defend
abominations violating the basic rights of poor women and children. These are
the same parties that vocally uphold women’s rights and condemn civilian and
child genocide in Gaza on some days, yet on others, support atrocities, ignore
heinous crimes by Zionists and Banderists, and even applaud them.
Over the years, I monitored Ukrainian surrogacy websites, exchanged
emails, and posed as an infertile woman desperate for a child. For a time, some
websites allowed the pre-selection of child traits like eye color and gender.
But after the “Special Military Operation” began, this information disappeared, along with access to previous
news about this topic and the rise of Ukrainian neo-Nazi movements.
Fortunately, I preserved some addresses and reference material, despite
widespread whitewashing, omission of crimes, and Western information
censorship.
In 2024, SOL newspaper published a report titled The Future
of Birth Rates: From Eye Color Selection to Ethical and Legal Issues. I
am unsure whether its purpose was to prepare the public for practices already
ongoing in Ukraine for years — akin to Josef Mengele’s methods — or to deceive
readers into thinking these issues are new or forthcoming.
My perplexity comes from the manipulation attempts and the ignorance of
those playing along. I vividly recall the 2019 interviews with the owner of BioTexCom,
the largest human reproduction center, which had already been accused of abuses
but nonetheless transformed Ukraine into the world center of reproductive “medicine.” This “medicine” has become an unethical practice that challenges the very definition
of the word.
In 2019, Albert Tochilovsky accused President Zelensky shortly after his
election of lacking ambition and blocking genetic experiments in Ukraine. This
issue was apparently resolved quickly. Some suspect the interview served only
to exonerate Zelensky from the laboratories’ ongoing aberrant activities.
Tochilovsky openly discusses reproductive medicine in interviews available on BioTexCom’s
website — an enlightening resource that mainstream outlets like SOL could have
used if they intended serious journalism.
BioTexCom proudly displays its media
supporters on its website — Sky News, Marie Claire, Euronews,
The New York Times, BBC News, CNN, The Times, and Mail
Online. The so-called mainstream media in democratic countries
merely serve their financiers by propagating propaganda, not genuine
journalism.
We live in a strange world where those who proclaim human rights and
democracy shamelessly violate them, manipulate entire populations, and turn
them into accomplices.
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