Swiss nationals face EU sanctions over disinformation claims

Jacque Baud’s case has attracted much attention since he was sanctioned by the EU in December. ©PHOTOPQR/LE DAUPHINE/Grégory YETCHMENIZA

Two Swiss nationals have been sanctioned by the European Union (EU) in connection with Russian propaganda. Why exactly and why these two in particular is not entirely clear. An analysis by Benjamin von Wyl.

The case of Jacques Baud, a former Swiss officer and agent of the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), has caused a stir in recent weeks. Last December, the EU slapped him with sanctions barring him from travel and freezing his bank accounts. The measures hit him harder than many sanctioned Russians. He lives in Brussels.

The attention for Baud’s case has also brought Nathalie Yamb’s situation back into focus. The Swiss-Cameroonian dual national has been sanctioned since last summer.

Unlike Baud, Yamb still enjoys a certain degree of freedom of movement. Based in West Africa, the influencer thanked Niger’s rulers on Instagram in August last year for appointing her as a special advisor and for giving her a diplomatic passport, which she has since used for an official visit to Venezuela.

Swiss ambassador steps in

Both individuals feel abandoned by the Swiss authorities, even though Switzerland did not adopt the sanctions. As reported by the German-language newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, the Swiss ambassador intervened in Brussels on January 9, 2026, on behalf of the two citizens.

Another Swiss national on the EU sanctions list is Artem Yrievich Chaika. The businessman and advisor to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov was also hit by sanctions, but unlike in the cases of Baud and Yamb, Switzerland did adopt the measures against this Russia-based Swiss in 2023.

The sanctioned businessman Artem Yurievich Chaika is a Swiss and Russian citizen. Marsel Badykshin

Chaika’s travel ban and financial sanctions fall under the EU’s Ukraine sanctions while Yamb and Baud were sanctioned by a different regime designed to counter Russia’s hybrid threats.

When does journalism justify sanctions?

In 2024, the EU introduced a directive for this. Anyone involved in “measures or strategies” linked to the Russian government that “undermine democracy, the rule of law, stability or security” in a country or an international organisation, as the EU directiveExternal link states, is barred from entering EU territory. In practice, these “measures” are likely sabotage and disinformation.

However, accusing someone of disinformation inevitably pushes the debate into a grey area. Disinformation is deliberately spreading false or misleading information, not just false information. In other words, false information only becomes disinformation if there is a purpose behind it. At the same time, press freedom is strongly protected which raises the question: when does free expression end, and when does journalism become a hybrid threat that can bring the lives of those responsible to a standstill? Sanctions take immediate effect, and even though the affected individuals can take legal action, the process is slow.

The ‘Lady of Sochi’ and her Telegram channel

Nathalie Yamb still goes by the label “The Lady of Sochi”. She uses it as a hashtag or for her Telegram channel where she shares posts on current events with tens of thousands of followers, based on her own criteria of relevance. In early March 2022, just days before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, she repeatedly posted about a UN resolution proposed by Russia against “neo-Nazism”.

Nathalie Yamb has said she was deported for “activities incompatible with the national interest”. Twitter/Nathalie Yamb

One post highlighted that the US and Ukraine were the only countries that voted against the resolution. Another pointed out that countries which imposed sanctions on Russia abstained from the vote. Yet another post accused a “caste of racist Western countries of hiding facts and the truth from Africans”. These posts by the pan-African activist at the time stand out.

She also takes a stance on sanctions against others. In 2024, she thanked Mali’s government on Telegram for imposing sanctions against Ukraine supporters and noted that it regarded “all support for Ukraine as support for international terrorism”.

Yamb told the NZZ am Sonntag: “I have risked my life often enough, and the war between Ukraine and Russia is really none of my business.” Considering the posts she shared with her followers, this statement seems rather dubious.

In its official statementExternal link on sanctions against Yamb, the EU mentions not only her support for Russia but also her “specific ties with AFRIC, an organisation linked to Russian private military companies”. AFRIC was part of a campaign led by the late mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin. Yamb has denied these ties, both to NZZ am Sonntag and to her followers for years. She claims that she has only been invited to AFRIC once.

The justification for the sanctions goes well beyond Yamb’s expression of opinion. As an employee of Niger’s regime that seized power in a military coup against a democratically elected president in 2023, the EU would have another reason for sanctioning Yamb. The EU has adopted a regulation providing for sanctions against Niger’s governmentExternal link, but so far not a single person has been put on the sanctions list.

Jacques Baud’s military background

Baud’s case is different. He is accused of appearing in Russian media and acting as a mouthpiece for pro-Russian propaganda. A quick search reveals one of his appearances on Sputnik International’s Telegram channel.

Baud is number 57 on the sanctions listExternal link. The next individual on the list, number 58, is sanctioned on similar grounds: like Baud, the French national is a former military officer. A military background is thus likely to play a role. Baud positions himself as military expert and analyst. In his 2024 book The Russian Art of War, he not only uses the term “special operation”, which is used in Russian propaganda for the war of aggression but also spells out the rationale behind it at length, as if it were merely a matter of definition. What he fails to mention is the fact that referring to the conflict as awar in Russia can land you in prison.

There is little room for nuances in The Russian Art of War. Western sanctions are framed as an opportunity for Russia, which Baud argues will inevitably win the war. “The main reason for Russia’s success is that we only know it through the prejudice and blindness in which our ‘elites’ and journalists have locked us,” he writes.

Baud’s case stands out in that, apart from his television appearances, the EU does not accuse him of any institutional ties to Russia. Unlike Yamb, who had already been sanctioned by France, Baud has no prior sanction record. He intends to lodge an appeal with the EU Court of Justice. The outcome of the case of the former Swiss military officer will be closely watched.

The main hearing before the EU Court is also likely be closely watched at Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), which oversees the sanctions regime. In a written response to Swissinfo, a spokesperson for the economics ministry said that SECO had refrained from submitting the EU sanctions over Russia’s hybrid threats to the Federal Council for a decision on Swiss adoption citing “legal and political considerations”.

But what does this mean in practice? When asked again, the spokesperson wrote: “Under the Embargo Act, the government may impose coercive measures to enforce sanctions aimed at respecting international law, in particular human rights. According to SECO, the “listing criteria within the EU sanctions regime targeting hybrid threats” only partially meet this requirement. “Recent individual cases have confirmed this,” the spokesperson added.

It remains unclear whether SECO considers Yamb and Baud to be among these individual cases.

The spokesperson added that sanctions related to Ukraine remain a priority for Switzerland. Interestingly, the term disinformation crops up dozens of times in the justifications for sanctions adopted by Switzerland, including individuals and organisations from countries such as Nicaragua, Myanmar, Libya, Belarus and especially Russia. They include government officials, businesspeople and those responsible for propaganda channels from non-Western countries. In most cases, their links to sanctioned regimes are obvious.

However, some of the justifications for these Swiss sanctions still seem arbitrary. Russian literary critic Maxim Zamshev is a member of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, which is a government body. The sanctions against the editor-in-chief of Literaturnaya Gazeta cite “support for the Russian invasion and spreading propaganda and disinformation about the war”. Zamshev lives in a country where many intellectuals openly support the war. Why he was sanctioned while others were not, remains unclear.

>>Read our analysis about how false claims about Swiss neutrality are circulating around the world.

Edited by Balz Rigendinger/dos/gm

Adapted from German by Billi Bierling/ds