“I died twice for the Russians”: French volunteers in Ukraine say they are “alive” and “not mercenaries”

Frank, with a generous beard and a sarcastic smile on his lips, assures him: “Fortunately, these are not very serious deaths, since I came back to life,” this Ukrainian International Legion fighter jokes in an interview with AFP.

The strong 50-year-old man, who agreed to testify via Skype with his face bare but prefers not to give his last name, on the front line where he is stationed, is one of the alleged French “mercenaries” killed, according to Moscow, in the strike overnight from January 16 to 17 in Kharkov in northeastern Ukraine.

France condemns false Russian information

The Russian Ministry of Defense, in a massive communications operation, said it had “killed” about sixty militants in that incident, “most of whom were French citizens,” and wounded 20 others. Paris, for its part, claims that it has “discovered a coordinated maneuver by Russia” to spread false information regarding France, while the latter increases its arms promises to Ukraine.

Several lists, including one that purported to reveal the identities of approximately thirty “dead French mercenaries,” were widely circulated by Telegram channels and pro-Kremlin activists.

The video seen by AFP mentions Frank, who Russian media had already declared dead in the fall of 2022. “I lost my Go-pro camera in a trench in the Zaporozhye region (South),” he says. They used images of me mixed with images of corpses to say that my entire group was dead. » AFP also managed to find and interrogate two more Frenchmen appearing on these lists.

All three condemn “false propaganda” aimed at “discrediting” their voluntary service in the Ukrainian armed forces. These former French soldiers, none of whom were in Kharkov at the time of the attack, strongly refute the term “mercenary”.

Bérenger Mino, who is testifying under his real name and whom AFP met on January 25 in Aix-les-Bains, at the foot of the French Alps, says he left Ukraine in September 2023 after being wounded in battle. “It is absolutely impossible for me that 50 French fighters would end up in the same place at the same time in Ukraine,” says the 45-year-old former delivery driver, who first took up humanitarian work before delivering weapons to “stop massacres.” killing of civilians.

“These lists are nonsense: there are other guys on them whom I know, they used to be in Ukraine, but returned to France for a while,” adds a man who calls himself Sly, 43. Contacted via WhatsApp, he said he was currently fighting “in the south of Ukraine.”

Lists “created by Chat GPT”?

According to Frank, who made contacts in Kharkov from Donbass, where he works as a “sniper,” “the bombing that night did not affect a single military building, it affected civilian infrastructure, 19 civilians were injured, but that’s all.” The message is similar to that of local authorities, who on January 17 reported that 17 civilians were injured.

Some of the identities presented are also false, French diplomatic and military sources note, with one claiming that some lists “generated by Chat GPT” contain bizarre names. Like this Air Jordan born in 1986, which would have died. “Based on verified data about the presence of the French in Ukraine, (…) they are mixing truth and lies,” she said.

Xavier Teitelman, a consultant and editor-in-chief of the magazine Air et Cosmos, who is in regular contact with the French of the Ukrainian International Legion, claims to have contacted a dozen of them appearing on these lists, “all alive and well.” France does not deny the presence of some of its citizens in the ranks of the Ukrainian army, but rejects Russia’s suggestions that it is involved in their recruitment.

The word “mercenary” chosen by Moscow is important. Mercenary activities prohibited by French law or actions related to the fight for rewards abroad are punishable by imprisonment for up to 5 years. The term is also used by France to denounce the activities of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which Paris has accused for years of predation and war crimes in Africa.

Since the start of the war, in February 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for foreign volunteers to travel to his country to join the International Legion to fight the Russians.

Modeled after the Foreign Legion

“Mercenaries, Nazis… This is also part of the disinformation spread by the Russians! “- infuriates Sly, integrated into the infantry battalion of the regular army. “We all came here to defend another cause. Some wanted action, adrenaline, others came for humanitarian or political reasons, but if we were there for the money, it would be known. »

Under the official contract with the Ukrainian army, foreign fighters have a military record book, which indicates their name, unit and the weapons provided to them. “It’s actually a bit like the Foreign Legion in France,” says Frank, who, surrounded by fighters from “every nationality in the world,” has been fighting his Ukrainian brothers in arms for almost two years. In fact, being at the center of “Russian propaganda,” he says, doesn’t bother him much. “I take full responsibility for what I do. »