He Lost His Job for Not Predicting Russian Invasion

As the US warned earlier this year that Russia may try to invade, others pushed back on that prediction, including the new chief of France's military intelligence. Now, just seven months after he was hired, Gen. Eric Vidaud is out of a job, Reuters reports, citing an internal email and multiple sources. The French newspaper L'Opinion reports that Vidaud was told he'd need to leave his post by the summer over his alleged missteps, and that instead he opted to step down immediately.

Vidaud's departure comes after Gen. Thierry Burkhard, the head of France's armed forces, pointed the finger at him and his team for the apparent intelligence failure, telling Le Monde earlier this month: "The Americans said the Russians were going to attack, they were right." Per reports in local media, Vidaud's briefings ahead of the invasion were found by the army to have been "insufficient" and without "mastery of the subjects." One military source defends Vidaud, telling AFP that Vidaud was tasked with offering military intelligence "on operations, not on premeditation." And so, because Vidaud had correctly predicted Russia had the capability to invade Ukraine, "what happened proves him right."

The BBC adds that France's divergence from invasion predictions was "all the more embarrassing" because French President Emmanuel Macron, deemed by some to be the "Putin whisperer," had met with the Russian president in early February to push for a diplomatic resolution. The outlet notes there may have been other reasons contributing to Vidaud's leaving, including criticism after France lost a lucrative submarine contract with Australia. (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)