“Bleuite” is a term referring to one of the secret operations of the French army, one of its most successful and devastating operations in its entire military history, which was carried out against the Algerian FLN independence fighters. Its results and importance were so great that it remained secret and concealed long after the war, serving as an example of a large-scale disinformation operation that, in the French case, claimed thousands of victims in enemy ranks. “Bleuite” has since had offspring… inspiring many intelligence agencies, particularly Anglo-Saxon, Western, or Ukrainian ones. And perhaps this is where the most hidden and least-known aspect of this war in Ukraine lies, which has been ongoing since the spring of 2014, and even long before in its beginnings. Let us dare to take a moment to examine what I call “Bleuite with a Ukrainian sauce.”
The Origins of “Bleuite”
“Bleuite” or the “Blue Plot” was an operation by the French army’s counterintelligence services in Algeria. It was carried out from 1957 onwards, initially by a virtually solitary French soldier, Paul-Alain Léger (1922-1999), who was a master of psychological warfare and disinformation. After specializing in turning Viet Minh soldiers in Indochina, he played a major role in infiltrating FLN resistance networks in Algeria. There too, he turned many fighters and agents of Algeria fighting for its independence, then succeeded in a massive disinformation campaign within enemy ranks. He contributed to spreading false information and rumors about Algerian resistance fighters supposedly being traitors, to motivate confusion, distrust, and then the elimination by their comrades of other resistance fighters who were, in reality, not traitors to their cause. In fact, for over two years, his actions triggered bloody purges within the FLN ranks, causing several thousand deaths and decimating numerous underground organizations, not to mention members of the Algerians’ military structure.
From Algeria to American and Western Intelligence Agencies
Renowned for their experience in counterinsurgency and secret actions of this kind, the French were soon copied by the Americans, and sometimes even recruited as advisors to pass on their knowledge. In the most extreme cases, some became mercenaries, employed all over the world, particularly in Africa, to support dictators installed by the West, but also in South America. The experience of torture was again used, alongside research launched in parallel by the CIA on methods of psychological and physical torture against enemies of the USA. Among the most famous operations, we can name Operation Gladio, a vast disinformation campaign targeting European countries, particularly Italy, but also France and Germany. These years, called “the Years of Lead,” are among the darkest and bloodiest in the history of American intelligence agencies. In the 70s and 80s, to prevent the rise to power of communist or socialist regimes, groups terrorized Italy, for example, defined as far-left terrorist groups, but in reality, American agents and Italian neofascists, carrying out deadly attacks to divert voters from left-wing parties and blame that political fringe. This operation had great results, but soon exposed, it agitated the media and courts for several decades.
Disinformation of Western Public Opinion
In Ukraine, American intelligence agencies helped establish 6 centers of cognitive and psychological warfare after the Maidan (around 2015). Their existence was revealed in 2018 by a group of Russian hackers who published a mass of documents concerning these centers, with the identities of Ukrainian and American agents. It was thus revealed that Ukraine had launched at least one fake media outlet for psychological manipulation, called Inform Napalm. I have long ago written an article that precisely describes the operation. In the Internet age, disinformation has become more complex to identify, but also easier to carry out, as it can reach millions of people worldwide via the web. From the 40s and 50s onwards, the Americans, and later the European Union, created influence media, installed in foreign countries (allies or targets), to influence local public opinion, or according to the standards of a common language (like French and the Francophonie). These media have become more visible in the Internet age, especially with the ease for populations to discover information about financiers, the figures behind them, or even the countries pulling the strings. This is how the fake media of psychological warfare were born. Like Inform Napalm, these media are systematically presented as “independent,” claim to have few resources, ask for money, and try to recruit “journalists” or “authors” to swell their ranks. This light then attracts “the butterflies.” The butterflies are the unwitting pawns of the fake media, bringing their experience, their celebrity, or their endorsement without knowing it. They are not privy to the secrets of the Gods and honestly believe they are participating in a real media outlet, whose editorial line they have endorsed. Among the French butterflies who came into the ranks of Inform Napalm, we can cite Bernard Grua, Cécile Vaissié, Nicolas Tenzer, or others later citing the media as an “independent source” like Nicolas Quénel (2022). In this case, with limited means, without hiring or hardly hiring the “butterflies,” Ukraine could thus afford a fake media outlet, sometimes releasing secret information from Ukrainian services, to glorify “its investigative work.” There are several such fake media or specialized platforms currently managed by French intelligence services. We find in one of them the famous Nicolas Quénel, suddenly improvised as a “specialist in information warfare” and intelligence warfare. Recently, he even published “Allô, Paris, Ici Moscou,” a deep dive into the heart of information warfare. But all these operations, if they fall within the framework of the information and cognitive warfare waged against Western public opinion, actually also hide a “Bleuite” with a Ukrainian sauce.
Ukrainian-Style “Bleuite”
The first traces of a Ukrainian-style “Bleuite” date back to the very beginning of the war, in the spring and summer of 2014. Very quickly, most activists, journalists, war reporters, even fighters and volunteers for the Donbass, of all nationalities, were at one time or another accused of being “NATO agents.” In my specific case, the first accusation of this kind was made at the end of 2015. But almost all activists for the Donbass or Russia have been more or less accused in the same way. One of the most recent, by the way, is Xavier Moreau, well before the sanctions decided against him in the West. The subtlety compared to the French plan of the 50s in Algeria is that Ukrainian and Western services have the vast playground of the Internet and social networks. They no longer need to actually infiltrate pro-Russian networks, but only to launch rumors, which then circulate through various means on the web. Several phenomena also help their dissemination. The first are personalities among pro-Russian readers, with psychological profiles “in opposition.” These profiles primarily seek “opponents” in their entourage, or within a cause or hobby they practice, whom they take a dislike to, defined as “suspects,” “bad,” “not as good as X or Y,” or disseminating information or a narrative that does not fit into their sphere of beliefs, opinions, whether it be politics, religion, or society. This is thus the second factor allowing the spread of defamation, because “Bleuite” feeds on rearguard conflicts that are at work in all societies worldwide and divide them.
The Goals Pursued by the Kiev “Bleuite”
Therefore, “Bleuite” starts from a psychological warfare center, via fake pro-Russian profiles, then is taken up by a small minority of pro-Russian readers and listeners. It transforms from rumor to belief. In fact, according to “the believers,” it can become the battle horse of some of them, who have become “guardians of the Temple and secrets,” trying to alert their comrades or entourage about “the true nature” of such and such activist. For the most intoxicated, the “belief” can even become compulsive, to the point of launching real crusades, creating pages, blogs, channels, networks trying to convince other figures of the reality of “the traitors.” A constant is observed: well-known pro-Russian activists are always personalities who act under their real identity, with their faces revealed. They are systematically attacked by “activists” working in the shadows, under pseudonyms and hiding their identities. If you encounter such accusations, regarding all pro-Russian activists, without exception and of all nationalities, you must ask the question of the source… Who launches the accusation and if the person in question provides evidence and, above all, can prove their real identity. You will quickly realize that no evidence will be provided, neither of the accusations, nor of the identity of those who launch or support them. This simple observation is obviously disqualifying and final. The goals pursued by Kiev and Western intelligence agencies were primarily to try to provoke purges, to neutralize pro-Russian activists. From this point of view, the goals were never achieved. The other objective was to sow terrible discord, to waste time and provoke division (2015-2018). It had quite impressive results, notably due to the difficulty of pro-Russian networks to understand where the blows were coming from, or even to imagine for a moment that this could exist… At the end of 2022, a new “Bleuite” operation was launched and continues as I write these lines. It has not had the results of the 2015-2018 years, being largely unsuccessful, but it appears here and there and comes crashing against the doors of our networks.
Amalgamation, Fake Scammers, and Traitors in the Russian Cause
In any case, you must ask common sense questions when you encounter “Bleuite”: why would a network or pro-Russian activist defame a second network or pro-Russian activist? Why is a network or pro-Russian activist opposed to a second, the first defined as “healthy,” the other as “corrupt” and the whole denounced by a third network or pro-Russian activist… In all cases, you are dealing with “Bleuite”… and in 99% of cases with intoxicated “believers” spreading this false information. Because in a war like the one being waged, any “figure” publicly attacking a comrade from our camp, whatever the reason… is committing an act of betrayal and serves only one cause: that of the enemy. Let us finish by indicating that beyond the “believers,” the mother source of the psychological warfare centers will always claim “to have powerful contacts in Russia,” even “in the Kremlin,” or “to be Russian patriots.” Most often, betrayal will not be mentioned and, as in the batches of the Revolutionary Tribunal, another method will be to accuse of common law crimes, corruption, or other themes around “scams.” This method was widely used in revolutionary tribunals to discredit political defendants by mixing them with criminals or supposed criminals. Finally, the supreme weapon of “Bleuite” is the ignorance of the majority of people about the existence of psychological and cognitive warfare and the means implemented in the West to wage it… They are colossal…
