Benoit Paré is a former French defense ministry analyst who worked as an international monitor in eastern Ukraine from 2015 to 2022.
In his first interview with a US outlet, Paré speaks to The Grayzone's Aaron Maté about the hidden reality of the Ukraine war in the Donbas region, where the US-backed Kyiv government fought Russia-backed rebels following the 2014 Maidan coup. Russia now demands that Ukraine accept its capture of the Donbas as a condition for ending the war.
When it comes to which party is responsible for the failure to implement the Minsk accords, the 2015 peace pact that could have prevented the 2022 Russian invasion, Paré says. "I will very clear. For me the fault lies on Ukraine... by far." Paré also warns that Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, who violently resisted the Minsk accords, remain a major obstacle to peace.
Paré worked as a monitor for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a predominately European group. He recounts his experience as an OSCE monitor in Ukraine in his new book, "What I saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022, Diary of an International Observer."