France denies Kremlin spy chief’s claims of troop deployment to Ukraine

The French government is strongly denying a claim by President Vladimir Putin’s spy chief that Paris is preparing to send at least 2,000 combat troops to Ukraine to help Kyiv in its war against Russian invaders.

The accusation fuels a debate in Europe sparked when French President Emmanuel Macron recently said Western nations should drop their self-imposed prohibition on sending troops to Ukraine. President Biden and other leaders have said that step would prove too provocative to Moscow and could trigger a wider war.

Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, known as the SVR, said any French military personnel in Ukraine would become “priority legitimate targets” for attacks by the Russian armed forces.

“This means that [the French force] will suffer the fate of all the French who have ever come to the Russian world with a sword,”  Mr. Naryshkin said Tuesday in a statement on the SVR’s website.

The French Ministry of the Armed Forces denied Mr. Naryshkin’s allegations, calling them “a further example of the systematic use of mass disinformation by Russia.”

“We call for utmost vigilance to prevent any instrumentalization through this kind of campaign,” French officials said Tuesday on social media.

Other European leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have rejected Mr. Macron’s suggestion, but the French president has refused to back down, saying the idea of troops in Ukraine should not be taken off the table as Ukraine struggles to hold back Russian forces in the east and the south.

Mr. Naryshkin claimed that “dozens” of French citizens — presumably volunteer soldiers — have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the fighting more than two years ago.

“As the French Ministry of Armed Forces unofficially admits, the country has not seen such losses abroad since the Algerian War in the second half of the 20th century,” he said. “Paris, however, carefully hides not only the number of losses but also the very fact of the involvement of the French military in Ukraine.”

Russian intelligence officials also continue to stoke rumors of discontent among mid-level French army officers about possible deployment to Ukraine.

“Macron will sooner or later have to reveal the ugly truth, but he will try to delay the ’confession’ as much as possible,” Mr. Naryshkin said. “The current leadership of the country does not care about the death of ordinary Frenchmen and the concerns of the generals.”