Fact Check: Are There French Mercenaries in Ukraine?

Francois Mauld d’Aymee, a French officer-turned Donbass People’s Militia volunteer, told Sputnik on Thursday about mercenaries from France and Canada fighting for the Kiev regime in Ukraine.

Paris has rejected a recent statement by Russia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) explaining that a Russian airstrike destroyed a building in Ukraine hosting French mercenaries, among others.

“France has no mercenaries either in Ukraine or anywhere else,” the French Foreign Ministry argued, calling the MoD’s statement "another clumsy Russian manipulation."

Why do the French claims hold no water? Sputnik explores.

Mercenaries Issue Discussed Through Diplomatic Channels

Normally, discussions about the destruction of a foreign mercenary hideout in Kharkov in which French citizens were affected would be held through diplomatic channels.

Nonetheless, no such requests for high-level talks have been received, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

On Thursday, the French Ambassador to Russia Pierre Levy was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the incident.

"There is a conversation going on through our diplomats. There were no proposals to hold a conversation at the highest level. We have stated repeatedly that many foreign mercenaries are fighting on Kiev's side, and each time our statement is confirmed again," Peskov told reporters.

Kremlin Has Proof - Russian MP

The fact of Ambassador Levy being summoned indicates that French mercenaries were among those killed in the Kharkov facility, Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the Russian Upper House’s International Affairs Committee, said in an interview with Russian media.

"I think that when the ambassador is summoned to the Foreign Ministry, it means that they have precise evidence that there was a base of French mercenaries in that building," Dzhabarov said.

He recalled that even though mercenary activities are prohibited in France, the country’s hirelings took part in all mercenary operations, including in Africa and Ukraine, where they “really profiled themselves.”

Donbass Volunteer Opens Up

A separate insight came from Francois Mauld d’Aymee, a French officer-turned-Donbass People’s Militia volunteer, who recently opened up about French-speaking mercenaries in Ukraine.

Mauld d’Aymee described the hired guns as “sports enthusiasts [and] drug addicts" in an exclusive interview with Sputnik.

"Representatives of the French mercenary movement vary greatly. French-speaking Canadian mercenaries are worth mentioning. They, by and large, come from radical nationalist circles, and see the conflict as an opportunity to realize their pathetic dreams of replaying the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War. In other words, they’re openly Nazis, Hitlerites, and freely organize the dispatch of new militants from training centers which they own in Paris and Lyon," Mauld d’Aymee said.

He added that a "very small number" of those mercenaries “actually fight because their level of Ukrainian or Russian is too basic," which is why they’re “mostly kept in reserve.” According to Mauld d’Aymee, most of those hirelings on the front line have been wounded or killed.

520 Foreign Mercenaries on Ukrainian Soil

The Russian Investigative Committee reported in November that more than 520 foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine from 44 countries, including France, became involved in criminal cases.

Scott Ritter: All foreign mercenaries in Ukraine are now fair game for Russian forces

A strike on a Kharkov hotel that eliminated at least 60 French-speaking mercenaries marks a shift in the Russian mindset, ex-US intelligence officer Scott Ritter said.

“What does this… pic.twitter.com/xhP0r2E25V

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) January 18, 2024

In the same month, captured Georgian mercenary Georgy Chubetidze told Sputnik that foreign mercenaries from Ukraine’s “Second International Legion” were stationed in the Ukrainian city of Slavyansk, where they lived in rented apartments in fear of Russian missile attacks. According to him, those mercenaries included French guns­-for-hire.

TikTok Fighters

France’s RTL broadcaster, in turn, reported last summer that there were about 100 French citizens taking part in the Ukraine conflict on the side of Kiev.

The news outlet added that while at the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, about 800 people from France expressed a desire to serve as volunteers in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, only about half of the number finally joined them.

Some of those hirelings who left France for Ukraine returned shortly after, which led to them being nicknamed “TikTok fighters.” RTL reported that the Ukrainian military is looking for mercenaries of “a very specific profile,” ­those who had a baptism of fire and can handle weapons.

French Mercenaries Return-Related Risks

Also last year, left-wing lawmaker Frederic Mathieu sent an appeal to France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin in which he pointed out the security risks related to the return of French militants who fought in Ukraine.

According to him, those 400 people who earlier left France for Ukraine include about one hundred mercenaries who openly identify themselves as a part of radical movements.

Female Mercenary in Ukraine

Additionally, Sputnik disclosed that Camille Bertrix, a French citizen from the small town of Pont-du-Chateau, has been operating as a mercenary for the "Ukrainian International Legion" since spring 2023.

❗️EXCLUSIVE: A French mercenary in Ukraine supports Nazis, solicits aid deliveries from her hometown, and arranges parties featuring "French soldiers fighting in Ukraine," Sputnik has discovered.

◾️Camille Bertrix, a French citizen from the small town of Pont-du-Chateau, has… pic.twitter.com/EbA2lwSbc2

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) January 19, 2024

Last May, she arrived in Terebovlya, a town in the Ternopol region of Western Ukraine, and it remains unknown if she has been near the front line, as her social media posts only showed her in these locations. Her involvement there has led to France’s Pont-du-Chateau becoming a sister town with Ukraine’s Terebovlya.

Reports of First Victims Among French Hirelings

A second French citizen who was engaged in combat operations in Ukraine died of wounds sustained during an artillery shelling near Kharkov, RTL reported in 2022.

The first French mercenary to have been killed in combat in Ukraine was 32-year-old Wilfried Bleriot, ostensibly linked to French radical groups.

Military journalist and historian Laurent Briard has meanwhile told Russian media that in 2022, the French government tried to convince some French military personnel to leave the army and go to Ukraine to join the Ukrainian armed forces.

French Spy's Contact With Foreign Mercs in Ukraine

On top of that, Sputnik obtained documents indicating that Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Helly, of the French Directorate of Military Intelligence (DRM) and Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), communicated with foreign mercenaries in Ukraine two years before the conflict.

According to the documents, Helly rented an apartment in central Kiev for 59 nights from January to March 2020.

France has been one of the key supporters of Ukraine in NATO's proxy war with Russia, donating dozens of self-propelled artillery guns, light tanks and other armored vehicles, as well as surface-to-air and cruise missiles. The evidence seen by Sputnik suggests that Paris also had intelligence agents in Kiev in the run-up to the conflict.