Paris denies knowledge of hundreds of French Mercenaries in Ukraine after 60 died from one Russian missile

 

Anneke de Laaf

Earlier this week the Russians targeted a building with foreign mercenaries in Kharkov. Amongst the dead were many French citizens. 

Paris tried to downplay the French presence, then denied that the Macron regime knew anything about Frenchmen fighting for Kiev. Ritter isn’t buying it, and neither is Moscow. The French ambassador has been summoned to the Ministry of Foreign affairs and probably got an earful. He just left the ministry and is most likely reporting back to Paris as we speak. 

The Parisian claims are not plausible in light of Macron’s recent statement that Putin must not be allowed to win (plus the additional aid he promised Kiev). The French aren’t the first to suffer losses in Kiev-territory, earlier Yankee, British and Polish soldiers a.o. were neutralized. 

I hope those killed were mostly professional soldiers and mercenaries who knew what they were in for, rather than young adventurers getting sucked in by NATO propaganda. 

MOSCOW, January 19 - RIA Novosti. Retired US Marine intelligence officer and military analyst Scott Ritter, in an interview with RIA Novosti, called the assumption that the French authorities might not have known about so many of their citizens in the combat zone in Ukraine absurd.

On January 17, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the Russian Armed Forces hit a building with French mercenaries in Kharkov with a high-precision strike, killing over 60 militants.

“It is very unlikely that French citizens in such numbers and such concentration were in Ukraine, fought on the side of the Ukrainian army, and the French government did not know about it. It is also unlikely that such a number of French were in Ukraine without the support of the French government, which means that the authorities condone such actions," Ritter said.

He noted that it remains to be determined who were among the killed French fighters, whether they were “professional soldiers, civilians looking for adventure, or simply mercenaries.” In addition, the military analyst did not rule out that a number of killed Frenchmen could have been associated with the French Foreign Legion and advised the Ukrainian Armed Forces .

“But the very idea that the French authorities knew nothing is absolutely absurd,” Ritter concluded.

In connection with the destruction by the Russian Armed Forces of the location of foreign fighters in Kharkov, the French Ambassador was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov confirmed that contacts with Paris are conducted through diplomatic channels, and there have been no proposals for a conversation at the highest level.

On January 17, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the Russian Armed Forces, with a high-precision strike, destroyed a temporary deployment point in Kharkov for foreign fighters, most of whom were French mercenaries. The department noted that over 60 militants were killed. The French Foreign Ministry, despite plenty of evidence of the presence of French mercenaries in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, tried to disown compatriots in Ukrainian units, calling the information about the destruction of dozens of French mercenaries in Kharkov “gross manipulation of the Russians.” The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned the French Ambassador, and the State Duma of the Russian Federation, according to its speaker Vyacheslav Volodin , at the next meeting will consider an appeal to the French parliament to find out whether the French deputies are aware that someone, violating the norms of the French law prohibiting mercenarism, is sending militants to Ukraine.

In November 2023, the Investigative Committee of Russia reported that more than 520 foreign mercenaries from 44 states became involved in criminal cases, including French citizens being accused in absentia of mercenarism.

In August 2023, Frédéric Mathieu, a member of the French parliament from the left-wing party “Unbowed France,” sent an appeal to the head of the French Ministry of Internal Affairs, Gerald Darmanin , where he pointed out the security risks associated with the return of militants who fought in Ukraine to their homeland. According to him, among the 400 French people who have left for Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, there are about a hundred militants, most of whom openly identify themselves as part of the far-right movement.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has repeatedly stated that the Kiev regime is using foreign mercenaries as “cannon fodder”, and the Russian military will continue to destroy them throughout Ukraine. Those who came to fight for money themselves admitted in many interviews that the Ukrainian military poorly coordinates their actions, and the chance of surviving the battles is small, since the intensity of the conflict is not comparable with the Afghanistan and the Middle East they are accustomed to .

‘Lies are Their Agenda’: Canadian Journalist Blasts MSM Syria Coverage at UN Event

MSM - Main Stream Media has been called to task in the biased reporting of the American election. Here, they are chastised for their pro-western, anti-Assad coverage in Syria, based on lies and little more than 'gossip journalism'. This is a serious charge and it is not the first time it has been made, but this time it is made by a Canadian who has been there for years.

Boys stand amid the damage in the government-held al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria December 13, 2016. © Omar Sanadiki / Reuters

Western mainstream media’s coverage of the Syrian war is “compromised” as their local sources are “not credible” and, in the case of Aleppo, not even there, a Canadian journalist said in an emotional speech at the UN.

Syrians support Assad

“I’ve been many times to Homs, to Maaloula, to Latakia and Tartus [in Syria] and again, Aleppo, four times. And people’s support of their government is absolutely true. Whatever you hear in the corporate media is completely opposite,” Eva Bartlett, a Canadian journalist and rights activist, told a press conference arranged by the Syrian mission to the UN.

video 3:45

“And, on that note, what you hear in the corporate media, and I will name them – BBC, Guardian, the New York Times etc. – on Aleppo is also the opposite of reality,” she added. The mainstream media narrative, she argued, is meant to mislead the public about what is really happening in Syria by demonizing President Bashar Assad’s government and altering the facts on Russia’s support for Damascus.

Bartlett’s statements did not seemingly play well with everyone in the room. A reporter from Aftenposten, Norway’s largest print newspaper, challenged her and demanded Bartlett explain what she thought was the “agenda” of Western mainstream media. “Why should we lie, why the international organizations on the ground should lie? How can you justify calling all of us liars?” he said.

Sources not credible

Bartlett, who has been covering Syrian events for several years since the outbreak of the civil war, noted that while there are “certainly honest journalists among the very compromised establishment media,” many respected media agencies simply seem to avoid doing a fact-check.

She then asked her Norwegian colleague to name humanitarian organizations operating in eastern Aleppo. As the Aftenposten reporter stayed silent, Bartlett added that “there are none.”

“These organizations are relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [SOHR], which is based in Coventry, UK, which is one man. They're relying on compromised groups like the White Helmets. Let's talk about the White Helmets,” she went on.

White Helmets

Members of the controversial group “purport to be rescuing civilians in eastern Aleppo and Idlib … no one in eastern Aleppo has heard of them.” Meanwhile, she noted, “their video footage actually contains children that have been ‘recycled’ in different reports; so you can find a girl named Aya who turns up in a report in say August, and she turns up in the next month in two different locations.”

White Helmets keep rescuing the same girl

“So they [the White Helmets] are not credible. The SOHR are not credible. 'Unnamed activists' are not credible. Once or twice maybe, but every time? Not credible. So your sources on the ground – you don't have them,” Bartlett concluded.

A journalist from Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera took a more measured tone and asked Bartlett to explain the difference between the Western and Russian media coverage, saying that Russian television channels report on humanitarian efforts and reconciliation instead of overt naming and blaming.

“You ask why we aren't seeing this,” Bartlett said. “This relates to the other gentleman's question about why most of the corporate media are telling lies about Syria. It's because this is the agenda; if they had told the truth about Syria from the beginning, we wouldn't be here now. We wouldn't have seen so many people killed.”

And if people aren't being killed, arms merchants aren't moving their inventory! Isn't it ironic that left-leaning media are totally supporting war mongers!