One more step against the French fighters.
Russian deputies voted on a resolution this Wednesday denouncing the alleged presence of French “mercenaries” fighting for kyiv in Ukraine.
“It is regrettable that the French authorities, who were once with our country one of the initiators of political-military détente in Europe, are prolonging with their actions the agony of the Nazi regime in Kiev,” says the resolution of the Russian deputies addressed to the French National Assembly.
The text, which repeats the Kremlin's narrative presenting the conflict in Ukraine as an extension of the war against Hitler, was published on the website of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament.
“Who are we dealing with when we talk about France and the French?
To the ideological heirs of the legendary French president and General de Gaulle (…)?
Or to the supporters of the collaborator and criminal Marshal Pétain (…)?
»
France denounces “gross manipulation”
On January 17, the Russian army claimed to have destroyed a building in Kharkiv (northeast) where “mercenaries, most of whom were French citizens,” were deployed.
Sixty fighters were “eliminated” and 20 injured, Moscow then assured.
A pro-Russian French association, SOS Donbass, then released a list of names of 13 “French mercenaries” present in Kharkiv at the time of this strike.
Another list of 30 names is also circulating on Telegram.
“We insist on the fact that we have reliable information indicating that (…) French mercenaries are in Ukraine,” declared Wednesday for his part the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, calling on the French authorities to “take care » of their citizens.
Also readWar in Ukraine: what do we know about the French “mercenaries” that Russia claims to have hit?
As soon as the Russian army announced, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied and denounced “a new crude Russian manipulation”, stressing that France did not have “mercenaries
,
neither in Ukraine nor elsewhere”.
According to a French military source interviewed by AFP, around a hundred French fighters are currently in Ukraine, and some are close to far-right movements.
Paris does not deny their presence in the ranks of the Ukrainian army, but rejects the term “mercenary” and the Russian implication that France is involved in their recruitment.
New promises to help kyiv
Some of the identities put forward on the Russian lists are also false, according to a French diplomatic source.
And doubt remains over the very fact that French people died in this strike.
“A priori, no French people were killed in Kharkiv” last week, commented a French security source.
According to a security expert in kyiv, who knows several French members of the Ukrainian International Legion, there “are not many” in Ukraine and are “dispatched between several units”.
“The people I know are all alive.
They have not heard of any injuries” in Kharkiv, he told AFP, ensuring that he had come into contact with several of them after the Russian strike.
Also read “A missile passed through me”: at the bedside of Max, French fighter injured in Ukraine
Faced with accusations of manipulation of information by Russia, the French ambassador in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday to be criticized for "the growing involvement of Paris in the conflict in Ukraine."
These accusations of “mercenarism” come as France has, in recent weeks, increased its arms promises to Ukraine and is preparing to conclude a security agreement with kyiv.