France will send a foreign legion to Ukraine, Zakharova announces

“At the beginning of March, the command of the French Foreign Legion determined the composition of a battalion-level tactical group of about 1,500 people. It is assumed that in April the group will be put on full alert for operational transfer to the Ukrainian battlefields,” Zakharova disclosed the findings of Russian agents, according to the business-gazeta.ru server. She added that Kyiv is increasingly struggling with a lack of soldiers.

At the end of February, French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine. A few days later, the head of Russian intelligence (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin stated that France was already “preparing combat personnel to be sent to Kiev”. In the first phase, according to Naryškin, there should be around 2,000 soldiers.

Photo: Maxim Shemetov, Reuters

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova

In this context, the server reminded that, according to Russia, “French mercenaries” are already fighting on the side of Ukraine. Moscow announced in January that it had destroyed one of their strongholds in Kharkiv and demanded that Paris explain the presence of its men, the server said. At that time, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the French ambassador Pierre Lévy.

At the time, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that more than six dozen foreign fighters, mostly French, were killed in the airstrike. Paris, however, denied the Russian claim, saying that “France helps Ukraine only with supplies of military equipment and military training.”

Foreign Legion

The French Foreign Legion is an elite unit of the French Armed Forces.

It was created in 1831 as a unit of foreign volunteers, because after the July Revolution of 1830, foreigners were not allowed to serve in the regular units of the French army.

Originally, the Foreign Legion was intended to protect the French colonies, but it participated in both world wars.

After the collapse of the French colonial rule, the existence of the Legion was threatened, but it was able to overcome the crisis. In the 1990s, units of the Foreign Legion served in UN peacekeeping forces in the former Yugoslavia or during the first Persian Gulf War (1990–1991).

Members of the Foreign Legion, who are not allowed to serve under their real name, can apply for French citizenship after three years of service with “honour and fidelity”. A legionnaire who was wounded in battle has the same privilege. This is in accordance with the famous motto of the Legion, according to which a foreigner becomes “a son of France not by blood received, but by sacrifice”.