Nicolas Tenzer Profile picture
Jan 26, 2023 10 tweets 6 min read Read on X
10 principles for these weeks (recap).
1 In the medium to long term, the main cost would be the non-defeat of #Russia.
It would be terrible for #Ukraine, #Syria, #Georgia, #Belarus, #Moldova, #Africa..., but also for Europe and the world.
It should dictate our strategic goal.
2 In the short term, the worst cost is measured in terms of Ukrainian lives (civilians, military, people in the occupied territories, incl. Crimean Tatars).
This is what must matter to us first.
We must defeat #Russia as quickly as possible with all possible conventional weapons.
3 Western leaders must banish certain words, including:
- escalation risks;
- red lines;
- peace talks;
- negotiations;
- compromise;
- balance;
- architecture of stability...
Words matter.
Narrative matter.
4 We must have a global strategy to counter Russian influence not only in our democracies, but also in the (different) Southern countries: s. recently the declarations of the🇲🇽 president, of the MFA of South Africa, & recurrent issues in other places of Africa, ME, Latin America.
5 If we want to guarantee our security in the future and avoid this perverse game of Russian criminal power, #Russia must lose radically, I repeat.
Until that happens, it will keep its power to harm far beyond Ukraine & keeps its "soft power".
Let's have the world order in mind.
6 We must understand why Putin's 🇷🇺 is an absolute enemy (s. my lastest).
Any trivialization (with the argument that Putin is not Hitler, the Russian war against Ukraine is not the WWII, that Ukrainian genocide Putin is not the Holocaust—so what?) serves the enemy's propaganda.
7 Method
There's an order to be respected: overall vision, objectives that follow, strategy, policies, secondary objectives, means, organization...
Western leaders have not formulated the first, nor the second—and the rest is logically missing.
Still too much day-to-day politics.
8 I already described this needed reversal: we've let Putin be the agenda setter for 22 years. We must now define our own, what I had called OUR war aims.
Beyond the general phrases that don't have the same meaning for all, we're still far from it.
Because of a remenance of fear.
9 Ukraine must win completely and Russia must lose radically in 🇺🇦 and elsewhere: objectives I had expressed at the beginning of this war.
Those who think that they can prevent Moscow from destabilizing the whole world without achieving these objectives are under great illusion.
10 The total victory of🇺🇦will lead to the fall of Putin's regime.
This is our goal: no one's thinking of overthrowing him—Russians will.
Not the apocalypse—some seem to fear it (insane).
Then, we'll have to manage🇷🇺in the long run.
Not easy, but without defeat no hope is allowed.

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More from @NTenzer

Jan 3
A thread. 🧵
There are four reasons that might justify international intervention:
- coming to the aid of a state under attack—this is what should have happened in Georgia in 2008, in Ukraine in 2014, and still today. It was done in 1990–1991 after Iraq's illegal invasion...
1/7 Image
of Kuwait;
- enforcing the responsibility to protect (R2P): this was done in the former Yugoslavia, albeit too late, and in Libya (first phase of the intervention). It should have been done in Chechnya, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, among others, now Afghanistan, but we did nothing.
2/7 Image
Point 2 does not exclude point 1 (as in the case of Ukraine, for example: we must intervene against russia because it has committed aggression and because it is perpetrating a whole series of crimes that are not subject to any statute of limitations under international law);
3/7 Image
Read 7 tweets
Apr 30, 2025
Like every year, on April 30, I commemorate the liberation of the #Ravensbrück concentration camp on April 30, 1945.
28,000 never returned.
On that day, my mother, a member of the Resistance and political prisoner who had been deported there, “celebrated” her 25th birthday.
1/ Image
Image
She would have been 105 today.
On that day, Hitler committed suicide.
I have often recounted her story here on previous April 30ths, from her time in the Resistance to her career after the war.
I will not repeat it today.
2/
I will only recall this sentence, which continues to haunt me: “In the Resistance, my comrades and I were absolutely certain: we were facing absolute evil. We had no choice but to eradicate it.”
3/
Read 8 tweets
Sep 30, 2024
Rappel au droit.
Un fil🧵
Les propos de B. Retailleau ont suscité une indignation légitime et fondée, accrue par ses fonctions actuelles.
Ils représentent un risque majeur.
Nous devons défendre l'#Etatdedroit et montrer ce qu'il implique. Il doit nous réunir.
Voici pourquoi.
1/16 Image
L'Etat de droit suppose qu'il n'existe pas de souveraineté absolue d'un quelconque pouvoir.
Il définit une souveraineté limitée de chacun en vertu du principe libéral selon laquelle il ne saurait y avoir de domination de l'un d'entre eux.
C'est un régime d'équilibre.
2/16
Le point fondamental est que la supposée volonté du "peuple" est limitée par la Constitution et par l'ensemble des traités et conventions auxquels le pays a adhéré et qui sont, de fait et de droit, entrés dans l'ordre juridique interne.
Le législateur ne peut les bafouer.
3/16
Read 16 tweets
Jun 9, 2024
I'm late in sharing some remarks collected by @cleacaulcutt for @POLITICOEurope (I was interviewed while I was in Chelm train station, Poland, on my return from Kyiv last Tuesday).
Great recent progres obviously, but my main questions remain.
⬇️
1/4
politico.eu/article/ukrain…
“The Ukrainians are very concerned about what the real objectives of allied nations are,” said Nicolas Tenzer, author of “Our War,” a book about Ukraine. “Are the Americans, the French and the Germans prepared to pull out all the stops so that Ukraine ultimately wins?”
2/4
“Even if Joe Biden is re-elected,” Tenzer cautioned, “not everyone in his administration wants to join forces with Ukraine and lead a victorious counter-offensive” against Russia.
3/4
Read 4 tweets
May 25, 2024
It's high time the Allies took action to drive the Russian enemy out of Ukraine.
Not tomorrow, but now.
In fact, I've been asking for this since February 24, 2022. It would have saved over a hundred thousand lives and increased our security.
A thread.
1/13
🧵
What hasn't been done hasn't been done.
As Spinoza once wrote, “regret is a useless feeling”. But it can only haunt us.
Now, let's get on with it.
There must be not limitation on our side.
2/13
I see the debates in the US. They're not new.
The differences within the Biden administration over attacking military targets with US weapons in Russia are long-standing.
Giving up would be a sign of US strategic bankruptcy.
Taking action will also pay off electorally.
3/13
Read 13 tweets
May 12, 2024
Ten theses.
A thread.
🧵
1 We're at war with Russia, not because we've declared it, but because it's waging war on us.
#OurWar
2 Russia is waging a war of extermination. That's just a fact.
It's a war without limits, neither in time nor in space.
3 With a radical enemy, there can be no negotiation. Any negotiation means both more crime — in fact, it's a license to kill given to Putin, especially in the Russian-ruled areas of Ukraine — and more insecurity.
Read 10 tweets

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