Russian intelligence says France wants to send thousands of soldiers to Ukraine

The head of Russian intelligence said France was preparing to send large-scale forces to Ukraine, but Paris denied this information. "French leadership does not care about soldiers' casualties and concerns from generals.
According to the data we received, France has prepared an army to send to Ukraine, the number in the initial stages may up to about 2,000 soldiers," said Sergey Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on March 19.

According to Mr. Naryshkin, the French military expressed concern about the risk of not being able to secretly deploy such a large army to Ukraine and hide their military location. "This army will become a priority and legitimate target for the Russian armed forces," Mr. Naryshkin emphasized.

According to the director of SVR, French officials concealed the number of losses and the participation of French soldiers in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This makes it difficult for them to bury the dead, compensate relatives and pay salaries to veterans.

SVR commented that the Elysee Palace believes that the number of French citizens killed in the war between Russia and Ukraine "has crossed the psychological red line", which could cause the country's people to react violently if the information is released.

French military leaders are concerned about the discontent of mid-level officers in the country's forces. A number of officers have been killed, the French army is having problems finding volunteers to rotate and replace those who have been withdrawn from the Ukrainian battlefield," Mr. Naryshkin said. The French Ministry of Defense later rejected the information given by the SVR leader. "What Mr. Naryshkin staged once again illustrates how Russia systematically uses disinformation," the French Ministry of Defense said.
France-Russia relations have seriously deteriorated in recent weeks after Paris increased military support for Kiev, including signing a long-term bilateral security agreement and committing to transfer more long-range cruise missiles. French President Emmanuel Macron announced on February 26 that "the West does not rule out sending troops to Ukraine" and affirmed that it would do everything to prevent Russia from winning the conflict.

Mr. Macron later explained that the statement did not mean that France would send troops to Ukraine in the near future. French officials affirmed that Mr. Macron wanted to stimulate debate on the issue among allies, but had no specific plan.

Many European countries and NATO members said they would not send troops to Ukraine or would not consider this. Russia warned that the West's deployment of troops to Ukraine could cause inevitable direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, saying that many countries "are quite alert about the potential risks in such actions".

France accuses Russia of regularly spreading false information. In January, they rejected the notion that Paris had mercenaries in Ukraine, a day after Russian lawmakers passed a resolution condemning French mercenaries.