William Molinié, edited by Wassila Belhacine 09:40 a.m., April 01, 2022, modified at 09:40 a.m., April 01, 2022

The war in Ukraine revealed the effectiveness of American intelligence services.

But what about French news services?

How do they learn about the ongoing war?

What is the conflict prevention capacity of the French services?

Answers with William Molinié, police-justice journalist from Europe 1.

DECRYPTION

In Ukraine, the Russians are withdrawing, but the war could still last for months, according to American intelligence.

So far, US predictions about the conflict have proven to be correct.

Indeed, the Americans had anticipated the start of the war, unlike France which did not believe or did not want to believe in an invasion.

General Éric Videau, head of French military intelligence, was sacked just seven months after taking office, for not having sufficiently alerted to the Russian intervention in Ukraine.

But do our services have the capacity to foresee conflicts?

How does France get information in Ukraine today?

A French Services dependency in Washington 

France obtains its information mainly from human sources present in Ukraine.

The French services are also mobilizing technical resources, such as the Awacs radar planes (editor's note: a radar system mounted on planes which makes it possible to monitor airspace) which perform daily rotations above Romania and Poland.

Their influence provides intelligence at least as far as the western half of Ukraine.

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But the French army is very dependent on Washington.

The war in Ukraine revealed American supremacy in the field of intelligence.

"They are the ears and eyes of the Ukrainian army in the face of Russian movements", indicates a source to Europe 1. American intelligence would even be established inside the Kremlin, which would have allowed him to affirm that Vladimir Putin was misinformed by his own staff.

American help for cybersecurity in Ukraine

Finally, in the field of cybersecurity, for several years Washington has been helping kyiv to counter computer attacks by building, according to information from the police-justice service of Europe 1, parallel digital architectures.

If the Russians tried to flatten the Ukrainian systems, they would fall into empty shells.

A source close to the services analyzes for Europe 1: "We have overestimated the Russian army and underestimated the Ukrainian defense. It is holding up. It is certainly holding up thanks to the Americans, but it is holding up well."