Cleaning up my ever bulging tab list, I came across this article from Mar 2022: interview with Jacques Baud, which makes it clear - in retrospect, if it were not already clear - that sanctioning him was done, in part, as a warning to anyone similar, who may want to speak out a bit too much:

"Jacques Baud: I know the region we are talking about quite well. I was with the FDFA [Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs] and on its behalf I was seconded to NATO for five years top lead the fight against the proliferation of small arms. I contributed to projects in Ukraine after 2014. In addition, I know Russia, NATO, Ukraine and the related environment very well due to my previous job in strategic intelligence. I speak Russian and have access to documents that few people in the West look at.

You are an expert on the situation in and around Ukraine. Your professional activity brought you to the current crisis region. How do you perceive what is happening?

JB: It is crazy, we can even say there is a real hysteria. What strikes me, and what bothers me a lot, is that no one is asking the question why the Russians launched their operation. No one wants to advocate war, and certainly not me. But as the former head of “Policy and Doctrine” in the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York for two years, I always ask myself the question: How did we get to this point of starting a war?

What was your task there?

JB: It was to understand how wars happen, what factors lead to peace, and what can be done to avoid casualties or how to prevent war. If you don’t understand how war happens, then you can’t find a solution. We are exactly in this situation. Every country is imposing its own sanctions against Russia, and we know very well that this is going nowhere. What particularly shocked me was the statement by the Minister of Economy in France that they want to destroy Russia’s economy with the aim of making the Russian people suffer. Such a statement is outrageous."

There is a lot more...

https://mronline.org/2022/03/31/the-policy-of-the-usa-has-always-been-to-prevent-germany-and-russia-from-cooperating-more-closely/