🚨Revealed: EX-OSCE Observer DESTROYS Ukraine War Lies | Benoit Pare

## Why Paré wrote a second book The impulse behind Benoît Paré’s second book, Ukraine: The Great Manipulation, is less literary than forensic: to reconstruct how stories of atrocity became building blocks of policy and public sentiment. Paré, a former OSCE observer who served on both sides of the front, offers a narrative born of repeated disappointments with how the mainstream Western press reported — and often simplified — a sequence of wartime events in 2022. He describes a pattern in which initial, striking allegations were amplified into moral mandates that shut down political maneuvering and hardened public opinion. The second book aims to challenge that pattern by assembling overlooked evidence, juxtaposing competing accounts, and insisting on a standard of inquiry that, in his view, was absent during the early months of the conflict. Paré frames his project as corrective rather than contrarian for its own sake. Having spent years witnessing ceasefire violations and the human consequences of low-intensity war in Donbas, he saw the 2022 escalation as different in degree and in the speed with which narratives ossified. His prior diary, What I Saw in Ukraine, recorded daily observation; the new book attempts to analyze the media ecology that turned a succession of traumatic events into a coherent but politically convenient storyline: Russia as uniquely barbaric, Ukraine as wholly innocent, and negotiation as impossible. He argues that this constructed morality justified blanket policies that served wider strategic aims and foreclosed diplomacy. A central claim runs through the book and the conversation: in war, truth is the first casualty, and urgent public demand for simple narratives creates fertile ground for manipulation. Paré insists that responsible observers must offer competing versions, seek primary evidence where possible, and resist the temptation to let a grisly initial image become immutable proof. The book’s chapters focus on high-profile episodes — Mariupol’s maternity hospital and theater, Bucha’s alleged massacre, the Kramatorsk train station blast, and the mass graves in Izium — using each as a case study of how war reporting and political objectives can conspire to close down inquiry. ## The Mariupol maternity hospital Mariupol’s maternity hospital became a global symbol almost overnight: a bloody photograph, an anguished woman as emblem, and a narrative that Russian forces had willfully bombed a center for the most vulnerable. Paré, who spent two years-plus working in and around Mariupol, contests several elements of that received story. He traces the amplification of the image and points to testimony and logistical details that the early headlines omitted. Most consequentially, he asserts that parts of the hospital had been occupied by Ukrainian forces and that solar panels on the roof — a scarce source of power during blackouts — rendered the building a tactical asset. That assertion has two implications. First, if military personnel were using the facility, its protected status under humanitarian law would be compromised. Second, the presence of fighters complicates any quick moral judgment about responsibility for the incident. Paré does not claim a neat, single-agent explanation; he acknowledges a substantial crater nearby that likely resulted from a real explosive and believes the blast was not fabricated. Still, he objects to the media frame that presented a singular story of Russian atrocity without documenting occupation or examining plausible Ukrainian tactical calculations. Paré also highlights the fate of visual evidence. The woman whose image circulated widely later gave accounts suggesting the hospital had been partially used by Ukrainian forces. That post-hoc clarification, he argues, was never given equal prominence. The result, he contends, was a narrative that powered public rage and policy choices — and which set a precedent for how subsequent events would be interpreted. ## The Bucha timeline and competing claims Bucha marks the moment when narratives hardened most dramatically. In Paré’s account, reports from Bucha became a geopolitical fulcrum: they stalled negotiations that were taking place in Istanbul and galvanized political will across the West for punitive measures. The speed and certainty with which images of civilian dead were linked to Russian withdrawal became, he argues, a mechanism for delegitimizing any diplomatic engagement. A careful look at timelines, witnesses, and the condition of evidence complicates that linkage. Paré stresses that competing claims — versions offered by Russian sources, by local witnesses, and by Ukrainian officials — were not all given balanced attention in the West. He points out that in the fog of war, bodies discovered after combat may raise legitimate questions about when and how they died. Establishing chain-of-custody, documenting the scene before bodies were moved, and timing autopsies are painstaking tasks that were often sidestepped in the rush to moral clarity. This is not an exercise in moral relativism. Paré is not denying atrocities occurred in Ukraine; he is warning that misattribution or incomplete inquiry has strategic consequences. When one version becomes a functional truth, it shapes domestic politics, international policy, and the appetite for escalation or restraint. The Bucha episode, in his telling, illustrates how contested forensic realities can be swept aside by a politics that demands a clear villain and a punitive response. ## Independent investigations and war narratives If the conversation’s recurring theme is the danger of rapid moralization, then its proposed remedy is rigorous, independent investigation. Paré calls repeatedly for credible, neutral fact-finding missions that can withstand political pressure. He laments that, in many instances, international organizations either lacked access or were unwilling to insist on the kind of procedural safeguards that would make findings indisputable: unimpeded site access, forensic chains of evidence, impartial medical examinations, and transparent methodology. Beyond logistics, Paré is concerned about the market for narratives. He notes that organizations and media outlets can become invested, psychologically and institutionally, in certain storylines. Once a narrative has been distributed, retraction or qualification rarely achieves the same reach. He gives the example of the Mariupol hospital and theater: early images and numbers — 300 or 600 dead in the theater — stuck with global audiences even as later reporting, including an Amnesty International analysis that questioned some details, received far less attention. The pattern, Paré suggests, incentivizes initial maximalist claims because they produce immediate political leverage and emotional traction. The conversation underscores a practical dilemma: independent investigations require political will that is itself shaped by public narratives. When leaders sense that domestic audiences will tolerate or demand harsh measures because of a vivid story, they may be less inclined to open doors to slow, uncertain forensic work. Paré argues that this creates a vicious circle: politicized narratives block investigations, and the absence of investigation reinforces the very narratives that prevent inquiry. ## Where to find Benoît Paré Benoît Paré’s work now straddles the boundary between field observation and public commentary. After his OSCE contract ended in May 2022, he took up journalistic work and published a series of pieces that form the backbone of his second book. The longer project collected six major case studies and numerous day-to-day reports, intended to demonstrate how media framing and selective reporting shaped international responses. Paré’s approach is rooted in field experience: he repeatedly emphasizes the value of on-the-ground familiarity, documentary triangulation, and the willingness to revisit early as

Revealed: EX-OSCE Observer DESTROYS Ukraine War Lies | Benoit Pare Former OSCE observer Benoît Paré returns to discuss his second book, Ukraine: The Great Manipulation. He explains why western mainstream media reporting on Mariupol, Bucha, Kramatorsk, Nord Stream, and the 2022 Istanbul talks left out key facts. Benoit and Pascal discuss war propaganda, calls for independent investigations, and the risks of media narratives driving further escalation. Links: [Book] What I Saw in Ukraine: 2015–2022 – Diary of an International Observer https://www.amazon.com/dp/295986011X [Book] Ukraine: The Great Manipulation https://www.amazon.com/dp/2959860144 Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack. com Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction and Benoît Paré’s new book 00:00:51 Why Paré wrote a second book 00:07:34 US strategy and Ukraine’s role 00:15:05 The Mariupol maternity hospital 00:19:32 Questions around the Mariupol theater 00:32:04 The Bucha timeline and competing claims 00:58:36 Kramatorsk and the Istanbul talks 01:03:41 Independent investigations and war narratives 01:06:17 How propaganda shapes the conflict 01:12:16 Where to find Benoît Paré #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies, today with an update by our friend and colleague Benoit Paré, a former OSCE observer on both sides of the front in Ukraine. Benoit, welcome back. #Benoit Pare Thank you, Pascal. I'm glad to be here. #Pascal I'm glad having you again, because you actually published a second book. Your first book, of course, is the one that we see to your left, What I Saw in Ukraine, where you report about your time as an observer for the OSCE, where you had to work in various capacities, detailing all of the explosions and so on, and the breaches of ceasefire that were evident at the time in the Donbas area. And now you came out with a book called Ukraine, The Great Manipulation, on the right side behind you in French, but it's also out in English, The Great Manipulation. Benoit, tell us a little bit about it. Why did you write a second book, and what is the focus of The Great Manipulation? #Benoit Pare -- 1 of 19 -- Yes, thank you for that introduction. Indeed, after I finished my contract with the OSCE, which was at the end of May 2022, I had a chance, actually, to work as a journalist, officially hired by a French online media called France-Soir. France-Soir used to be a big newspaper back in the '50s and '60s, but with time, it just evolved into a website. But, you know, the name is quite famous in France. So when I started to work for this online newspaper under a pseudonym, because I was not willing yet to speak openly, because I had not yet made the decision to actually stop any activity linked to my previous life, working for governments, basically, or international organizations. I proposed to my new boss to make a series of articles about the allegations of war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since the start of what the Russians call the special military operation and what the West calls the invasion of Ukraine. And this I worked on pretty fast during the summer. And the thing is, by then, I wanted to focus on a series of events, starting with the bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol, you know, which happened on March 9th, 2022. And then we had the bombing of the theater in Mariupol, just like a week later. And furthermore, we had the big thing, the Bucha events, the so-called Bucha massacre, which was a turning point in the war, in the new war in Ukraine. Because we know from then on, you know, the negotiations that were being held in Istanbul were basically stopped. I will come back to that. And parallel to that, there was another hot topic, which were the allegations of mass rapes committed by Russian troops in Ukraine. It went somehow parallel to the Bucha narrative, and it lasted for months. And very close to the Bucha event, there was another dramatic event, which has more or less been forgotten by now because, strangely enough, it has been little talked about ever since. It was the bombing of the Kramatorsk train station, which occurred on April 8, 2022. And lastly, to finish the sequence, I actually focused on the so-called mass graves in Izium, which occurred actually a bit later, in September 2022. Now, so these six articles that I wrote are what I consider to be the most important part of my book, because it basically constructed the narrative of Russian hate, which was key in convincing the audiences around the world, and especially in the West, that Russia was a barbaric country, guilty of a series of war crimes, and with which you could not morally negotiate, right? So this was built in a way, the narrative was built in a way to prevent any will of negotiation to end the conflict. This is my conclusion. And beyond these six articles about these allegations of war crimes, I also published other articles on a day-to-day basis about the events that were unfolding in Ukraine in those days, some of which many people have forgotten, even myself. And when I read all these articles for the purpose of the book, I realized, oh, it's true. This and this happened as well. I had forgotten about it. And each time, actually, there were, like, different stories making headlines about the war in Ukraine. You realize that there's always the same recipe at work, which is always like, as soon as something happens, maximalist accusations against the Russians, -- 2 of 19 -- systematically, without any investigation being done. And when you start to dig into the matter, then you realize, well, it's not exactly what the Western or Ukrainian press would describe. You systematically find out that there is more to it that is carefully hidden from public view. So I was doing systematically this work of offering, summarizing the Western view of every event, and then trying to find out what is the Russian viewpoint about the same events. And for this, you had to dig into social networks, usually like Telegram or Twitter in those days, because in most cases, the Russian viewpoint was, like, ignored, right? So you had to search for it. And I thought, you know, it's a basic work of a journalist or a researcher. When anything happened, you have to offer different versions of events because you know that in times of war, the first thing that dies is truth. Truth is the first victim of every conflict. And I've been, you know, working in this field for long enough to know how true this is. I discovered this reality since I was, like, a young observer in Bosnia-Herzegovina just after the civil war there. Actually, we were more than observers when I was working there. We were, like, actors. But yeah, I know this reality, you know. I've known this reality for the last 30 years. And this reality has been pushed to its extreme logic in the case of the war in Ukraine, which is so obvious to me when you start to work on digging information about it. #Benoit Pare And last but not least, I also published at least one article, which was one of the most important articles I ever wrote. It was called "How Ukraine Became an American Pawn." That was a reference to this famous book by Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Grand Chessboard," which he wrote in 1997. And when you read this book, you actually understand the logic, the rationale of the American deep state and the long-term objectives they had since the '90s to actually prevent the resurgence of any rival power. And, you know, after the fall of the USSR, they thought that America was in a position of hegemony that was unrivaled. And the priority of the strategic thinkers was to make sure it would stay that way, that they wouldn't have to face, at some point, a resumption of a rebirth of a Russian hegemony. So they had to kill that before it could happen. And Brzezinski explained that the best way, in his view, to do so was to separate Ukraine from Russia. That was the plan. And everything the U.S. administrations did from then on, including under the Republicans or under the Democrats, it's the same. It's always the same logic. It's the uniparty basically unfolding its own agenda, regardless of who is in power. And so during the Orange Revolution, for instance, in 2004, it was the Bush administration, but the goal was to actually control Ukraine. So they supported as much as they could their pro-Western candidate, Yushchenko, at that time, whose wife was actually a U.S. diplomat, amazingly, right? So they had the means to control what was going on in Ukraine through the wife of the president. That was so obvious. She had worked for the U.S. government all her life. And some people even suspect her of having worked for the CIA. -- 3 of 19 -- Anyways, that was one of the episodes. And then afterwards, there was Maidan, of course, as we know. And there was one actor that you see all the time during those years. It's Victoria Nuland. You know, she was actually working under the Bush administration, and then she worked under the Obama administration, and then under the Biden administration. And she was the key, actually, the key person under all U.S. administrations to actually define U.S. policy towards Ukraine. And, you know, she's married to Robert Kagan, who is a famous neoconservative. And she has an extremist ideology and basically was pushing the agenda as much as she could, very successfully, you know, as a matter of fact. So I was explaining all this story about the background of the war in this article, "How Ukraine Became a U.S. Pawn." So in some ways, I was, like, trying to focus on the day-to-day news coming from the front, showing how much manipulation there was. And at the same time, I was recalling why they do that. They do that because they have strategic objectives, which is to weaken Russia and to separate it from Ukraine. And beyond that, the objective was to prevent any rapprochement between Russia and Germany, or Russia and the European Union, because they knew that the cooperation of the two could be a threat to America and Germany. So this has to be prevented at any cost. So the logic of separating Ukraine from Russia ended up also being a logic of separating the European Union from Russia. And this is very obvious, notably when you think about the Nord Stream pipeline, which, you know, not only Obama, but also President Trump during his first term said that it was a strategic objective to make sure this pipeline would never work. And they managed to achieve that objective. And yet, at the same time, going back to manipulation, they managed to spread the message in the mainstream media that this was actually the Russians who did it, which is, you know, incredible and showing, you know, that they were not afraid of coming up with narratives. You know, we have a saying in French, which is, you know, the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it, which is, like, you know, sounds counterintuitive, but reality shows that it is efficient. I even had a former German colleague, whom I thought was an intelligent man, working with me in Donbass. And when we discussed the issue of Nord Stream once, he actually believed that it was the Russians who did it. And I said, well, how can you believe that? And he said, "Haven't you heard about Seymour's first investigation?" And he had never heard about it. He didn't know who Seymour Hersh was. He didn't know he had made this article on Substack, which basically was a much more convincing scenario to explain what had happened. That was basically a secret operation organized by the CIA. And he had never heard about it. And in the end, he said, "Well, you know what? It doesn't matter because we should not buy gas from Russia, period." And then I realized that there was another thing he was convinced of. It was that Russians were barbarians. And this goes back to what I was talking about at the begi