During his career, Maurice Gourdault-Montagne had to deal with many conflicts. This 68-year-old senior official was Jacques Chirac’s diplomatic adviser at the Elysée Palace during Vladimir Putin’s first years in power, during the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. And today, the former secretary general of the Quai d’Orsay is alert. The absence of a European strategy in the face of a Putin ready to “make Russia great again by all means”, he says, worries him. “We don’t talk about peace at all, we fight to fight”, he worries to L’Express. This close friend of Dominique de Villepin , a supporter of a line of diplomatic independence vis-à-vis the United States, wants the Europeans to regain control of the negotiations, having in mind above all their interests, not necessarily exactly modeled on those of the Americans. Otherwise, he does not exclude that the situation escalates further, until it becomes “uncontrollable”, a scenario to be absolutely avoided.
L’Express: Does an escalation in the Ukrainian conflict seem credible to you?
Maurice Gourdault-Montagne : I remain convinced that Putin never speaks without saying anything. He had announced what he wanted to do in Ukraine, he amassed troops. He entered it, as he had declared. Russia has also repeatedly said that arms deliveries to Ukraine were “legitimate targets”. A note, recently delivered by the Russian Embassy in Washington to the State Department, asks for the cessation of these arms deliveries and speaks of “unforeseeable consequences”, if not. Its a threat.
The response of the United States was to have Congress vote on arms deliveries up to an amount of more than thirty billion dollars. We are in pure and simple climbing. And so I do not exclude that in this logic of escalation, the Russians will take the next action. It can be a bombing of a convoy that overflows into a NATO country, Poland, Romania or one of the Baltic countries. And there, we would go towards an uncontrollable conflict on European territory. That’s why it’s time to question our war aims. You have to fix them, and negotiate accordingly.
The objectives seem quite clear: the restoration of Ukraine’s borders.
This is not enough. Of course, the territorial integrity of countries is a sacred principle. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is unacceptable. But now that we’ve said that, what do we do? When I listen to the Westerners, I have the impression that the only objective is to inflict a defeat on the Russians. What does it mean ? Is it about inflicting a defeat on them in Ukraine, or bringing down Putin? Biden said it, he wants to make sure the Russians never do it again. It means that we have to go all the way, including as far as Putin is concerned. But we don’t know how to go about it. And there is no longer any negotiation between the parties. So I observe that we are moving more towards a prolongation of the conflict, with no clear prospect of an exit. We don’t talk about peace at all anymore, we fight to fight, through Ukrainian intermediaries and we will see later. It’s very dangerous.
Are negotiations possible when the situation is not stabilized on the ground?
Of course, negotiating presupposes a prior cessation of fighting. This requires that the belligerents have the impression of having reached their culminating point. For the Russians, it seems quite clear: they will try to take Odessa to ensure control of the coastal strip of Donbass in southern Ukraine, including Crimea. They would thus hold access to the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, that is to say the outlet ports for Ukraine’s exports. This would put them in a good position to negotiate. They can also decide to stop the fighting and stay put, as they did in Transnistria, Abkhazia or South Ossetia. We would be in an occupation situation.
Does the Russian army really have the means to occupy Ukraine?
It’s a real question. We don’t know how the Russian army and state are coping with the shock of war. There were purges in the security services, in the military. It goes more in the direction of a shake-up of power. At the same time, Russia is a police regime. So it may take a while longer. And there is rather a support of the population, reinforced by Western measures against athletes and artists. These sanctions only heighten the Russian feeling of the besieged citadel.
What attitude should be adopted towards Russian personalities abroad?
Sanctions, necessary in our eyes, can be counter-productive. They affect layers of the population open to the West: intellectuals, the middle class of large cities, sportsmen. Banning Russian tennis players from competing at Wimbledon, as has been done for other competitions with regard to Paralympic athletes, who are themselves exceptional people, is absurd. We deprive ourselves of very useful relays.
The confiscation of the assets of the oligarchs, particularly in France, has also not gone unnoticed. From the moment that there are no legal procedures, that they are not reproached for any personal behavior, it is observed with concern by wealthy people in the rest of the world: they wonder if we are a reliable country for buy goods. In this affair, the credibility of the West with regard to the rest of the world is questioned. Be careful not to be blinded by legitimate indignation. There is a world that will organize itself.
Moreover, the other powers are already making their arrangements. Turkey has announced that it will allow Russian tourists to pay in rubles. Saudi Arabia plans to be paid in yuan in its energy relations with China. Financial circuits will be set up away from the normal supply circuits. When social conflicts, famines will occur because of the shortage of cereals, exchanges will be beaten back and the countries will bind to those who offer them the best conditions. At that moment, the States which will not have confidence in us will let us down.
What should be the subjects to be urgently negotiated with a view to resolving the conflict?
The withdrawal of troops and the respect of fundamental principles. The first of these is respecting Ukraine’s borders, of course. Should we go through autonomy regimes granted to contested regions? Perhaps. The law allows it. On the other side, there is the withdrawal of the sanctions imposed on Russia. These sanctions force us to deprive ourselves of Russian gas, rare earths. Who can bear it long term? The United States, but not us. Let us never forget that our interests are not entirely convergent. The dynamic is slipping away from us when we are the first concerned. Because if an armed conflict breaks out between Russia and NATO, we will be in geographical proximity. Not the Americans.
“If we think we will solve all the problems with Putin’s departure, we are wrong”
We are condemned to live next to Russia, which is a noisy, difficult, conquering neighbour, but which will not be re-educated, as some say. If we think we will solve all the problems with Putin’s departure, we are wrong. His successor will not necessarily be a Democrat. So we have to adapt. And it will take a general conference one day to organize collective security in Europe by involving all the actors including Russia, as President Macron has already proposed.
Basically, do you think that we have overemphasized the moral dishonor constituted by this Russian aggression?
Let’s say that we tend to gargle with words, we talk about genocide, world war. This is not a world war. The Second World War was a conflict between Westerners in which the rest of the world was drawn because we had colonies. It was the army of Africa, it was India trained by the United Kingdom, it was the mobilization of the resources of the planet in the service of Westerners. Today, we are witnessing a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. For the rest of the world, it is a conflict between whites, between NATO and Russia.
Then, we tend to be too obsessed with good and evil. This approach is that of the United States, a country that once defined the axis of evil. His way of applying this simplification everywhere impacts us and prevents us from seeing clearly our interests. That doesn’t mean that we have to give up the values that we have conquered, but in this very serious matter, we have to keep a cool head, reason according to the balance of power, the interests of each and the law.
Precisely, should the International Criminal Court be seized for Russia to answer for its crimes?
War crimes arouse a movement of legitimate indignation. The Russians will obviously have to answer for this. Only, if Ukraine is a signatory of the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court, Russia is not. This will be one of the points that will have to be raised during the negotiations, but let’s do things in order. The Nuremberg trials were held in 1946, not before. It will no doubt be necessary to organize a special international tribunal. The difficulty is that the war crimes committed by the Americans in Iraq have never been documented and have never been the subject of an international tribunal. We will have to convince the international community to do it for the Russians when it has not been done in other situations, we could also mention Yemen, Libya… We will be criticized for the “double standard”. For us, one man is worth another, but in our behavior, no, one man has not always been worth another. There is a question of Western credibility.
Do you totally rule out the prospect of a nuclear conflict?
I do not exclude that in a desperate moment, the Russians use a tactical nuclear weapon. I never rule it out because they announced it, and when they announce something, it’s always possible that they will. Especially since the last NATO summit also raised the possibility of a response “of the same nature”. It was then a threat of the use of chemical weapons. Boris Johnson even declared that the United Kingdom reserved the right to intervene nuclear power outside the framework of NATO. So we end up taking extremely serious risks even though the West’s war objectives have not been defined. We could see things differently and say to ourselves that if things haven’t gotten worse up to now, it’s precisely thanks to the principle of nuclear deterrence. But you have to be careful. Even if the Russians used their tactical weapon on a relatively depopulated area, to mark the occasion, it would be incredibly violent. Some say it’s the equivalent of Hiroshima. According to specialists, you can raze Paris with a tactical weapon.
Shouldn’t we review our energy supply strategy?
It’s a necessity. The general interest calls for getting closer to Algeria and Qatar. But we are applicants, therefore in a bad situation to negotiate. Above all, be careful not to fall into dependence on the United States, which will want to take us into its rivalry with China. If we continue to trade with China, what tells us that one day we will not be sanctioned or that gas supplies will not be cut off?