France's “growing involvement” in Ukraine is criticized.
Russia summoned the French ambassador to Moscow on Friday, days after claiming responsibility for a strike on “French mercenaries” in Kharkiv.
On Friday, French Ambassador Pierre Levy “was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry and evidence of Paris' growing involvement in the conflict in Ukraine was presented to him,” the ministry announced in a statement.
This announcement comes two days after Russia claimed, on Wednesday, to have struck the previous evening a building in which “French mercenaries” were deployed in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city.
The Ukrainian authorities, for their part, reported a Russian bombing which left 17 civilians injured.
Also readWar in Ukraine: what do we know about the French “mercenaries” that Russia claims to have hit?
Paris, for its part, denied on Thursday that it had “mercenaries”.
“France has no
mercenaries
, neither in Ukraine nor elsewhere, unlike others.
This is yet another crude Russian manipulation,” the French Foreign Ministry said.
“Artillery” coalition
The Russian accusations came after President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday that France would deliver 40 additional Scalp long-range cruise missiles to Kiev, and sign a security agreement with Ukraine as the United Kingdom did. United.
Paris also launched on Thursday, with Ukraine's other allies, an "artillery" coalition to meet kyiv's needs in this area.
The French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, announced on this occasion that he would release 50 million euros to supply twelve Caesar self-propelled guns to Ukraine, and proposed to his partners to finance 60 other examples of these powerful French-made weapons for Kiev. .