French President Emmanuel Macron said last month that he “cannot exclude” the possibility of Western soldiers being sent to aid Kiev in its fight against Moscow, branding Russia an “adversary” while denying Paris was “waging war” against it.
Russia’s military and top officials have repeatedly pointed to the presence of French mercenaries already fighting for Kiev on the ground.
In the statement on Tuesday, the SVR chief said the French Armed Forces had become “concerned” about the rising number of French nationals dying in Ukraine.
The casualty level has supposedly surpassed a “psychological threshold” and could trigger protests, the statement said, adding that Macron’s government was concealing this information and “delaying” the moment it would have to be revealed.
The claims come as the chief of staff of the French Army, Gen. Pierre Schill, said in an interview on Tuesday that France is prepared to take part in the “toughest engagements” militarily, and is ready to face any international developments. He added that Paris could assemble a division of 20,000 troops within 30 days and an army of 60,000 by joining with divisions from other NATO allies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has also claimed this week that Western mercenaries, including French nationals, are dying in Ukraine “in large numbers.” Commenting on a potential NATO deployment to Ukraine, the president also warned that this would be “one step shy of a full-scale World War III.”
Cross posted this from lemmygrad
If they do this it has to be the French Foreign Legion. It won't cause many domestic issues and they don't have family connections in France so if they all die it won't matter to anyone there.
It’ll also be a good propaganda push. “Look at these epic tactical operators from all ethnicities and backgrounds united against the ruzzians! We shall honor their sacrifice and make them posthumous citizens!”
Yeah of all the nato countries France is fairly unique in being able to perform this. The UK still has some foreign regiments but they're kinda specialist and hidden within other units. There's the Gurkhas but I'm not particularly sure how Nepal would react if it heard its citizens were being sent by the British to go fight alongside of nazis... I would hope it would be very VERY bad for the British government and the continuation of operating their recruitment and bases in Nepal but I have no idea how Nepalese politics on this matter really looks. I'd love to see those bases shut down and the British kicked out. It's possible that Nepal just doesn't want to create several thousand very angry people out of the relatively well paid (for nepal) Gurkhas with British military training.
Who would actually fight? I feel that none of those people would actually do something so stupid as fight Russian troops/ deal with airstrikes.
They're as would be as good as dogfood; dead meat. They know this. I think it will be massively unpopular even among foreign legions. We might see people straight up defecting.
They'll fight until they realise first hand that this isn't a war where you fight but more like one where you hide in a hole from artillery, missiles and drones. When they realise what it is their willingness to be there will collapse very quickly. That probability won't stop France trying.
Oh I agree, this will be a shit show regardless if French soldiers proper or their foreign legions are fighting.
I think the west is genuinely out matched by Russia. The power and economic difference is so great that (unless nukes are being used) ww3 is going to be a one-sided bloodbath.
If they throw nato troops into Russia, it won't change the trajectory of Ukraine. It'll just expedite western Europe's decline.
I don't think the west is looking to start ww3 yet they're looking to create situations that will justify extreme policy in order to reorganise society to resolve the problems they have. They need to rebuild a massive manufacturing base and for that a complete societal reorganisation is required to move labourers from services into manufacturing. This requires a significant political reason to pull off because otherwise it alone will collapse western societies due to unhappiness both from the left and the far right.
I personally think they're doing calculated incremental increases to reach the political conditions necessary to achieve that. They have to decouple or ww3 is as you say, a nuke war and end of the world. Only decoupling and rebuilding manufacturing can enable them to win a war without nukes.
All of this shit is just trying to turn the dial very slightly without the nukes flying.