Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, April 30, that French people fight alongside the Russian army, in a unit bearing the name of a regiment that had distinguished itself during the Second World War.
French on the front alongside the Russians? Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday April 30 during an intervention in Moscow that French citizens were fighting for Russia as part of the war in Ukraine.
“There are people who have shared and who still share our principles and values. They are by our side. Today, French people fight alongside our soldiers during a special military operation,” said the Russian president, without supporting his remarks.
“They baptized their ‘Normandy-Niémen’ unit, as their grandfathers and back-grandfather did,” he said.
If Vladimir Putin does not give more details on these fighters, the Russian state television channel RIA evokes a French soldier with the indicative “Padre” and another “Gauthier”. These two volunteers would be former officers of the French army who left to fight in Russia in this unit presented by Moscow as being particularly active in the use of combat drones in the face of kyiv’s men.
Possible cases of volunteers present on the Russian side
General Jérôme Pellistrandi, defense consultant for BFMTV, recalls that there is no “absolute element” certifying how many foreign fighters are present on the Russian side in the war in Ukraine or what is their civil status.
However, the presence of French volunteers on the front alongside Putin’s men seems “possible” to him. “There are pro-Russian French people,” recalls our consultant.
These men are, however, necessarily voluntary individuals, according to him, that is to say having chosen individually to go on the front and not in the name of the French army. “They are not soldiers (…), even if there can be former soldiers,” said our consultant. In short, even if they are not quantifiable.
A reference to a “glorious past” for the Russians
Vladimir Putin’s declaration on Normandy-Niémen unit is also part of the usual discourse of the Russian president who claims that the war in Ukraine is a simple “special military operation” which should allow “to disnush” his neighbor.
The strong man of the Kremlin thus resumes his narrative with his population and “refers to a very glorious past”, explains Jérôme Pellistrandi, when Russia won against Germany during the Second World War.
Such a statement does not occur by chance either, while Russia is in full preparations for the commemorations of the May 9, celebrating the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany in 1945, scheduled for next Friday.
This sequence, during which a large military parade on the Red Square will take place in Moscow, will be an opportunity for Russia to reaffirm the power of its army, while Donald Trump made Moscow responsible for the start of the war in Ukraine for the first time.
Create a “confusion” among the kyiv allies
The words of Vladimir Putin also have a “instrumentalization” objective, says our consultant. “Its objective is to create the division” within the Western allies of Ukraine, but also a form of “confusion”, judges Jérôme Pellistrandi.
Because in fact, the “Normandy-Niémen” unit indeed exists within the French army. This air hunting group was launched during the Second World War in 1942 to fight alongside the Soviet forces against Nazi Germany which then invaded the USSR.
The name of the regiment notably refers to the Niemen, this river which crosses the current Belarus, Lithuania and part of Russia, and which was crossed by the members of the unity during a battle in 1944. Strengthened by more than 200 battles won officially, the unit receives honors at the end of the war, decorated in particular with the Legion of Honor in France, and always benefits from a very positive image.
A difficult peace agreement between kyiv and Moscow
“It is part of a logic of confrontation” against the Westerners allies of kyiv and fed by Vladimir Putin, estimates Jérôme Pellistrandi, while in particular France attributed for the first time at the end of April to Russian military intelligence the responsibility of the cyberattacs against French interests, including the hacking of emails from the campaign team of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. unfounded “.
In addition, discussions with a view to peace between Moscow and kyiv has been skating for two months, Volodymyr Zelensky always demanding a “total and unconditional” fighting and is not satisfied with the short truces proposed by the strong man of the Kremlin, currently perceived by the allies of Ukraine as the one who blocks the peace agreement.
Vladimir Putin proposed to Ukraine a three -day truce from May 8 to 10 in order to, according to him, test the arrangement of kyiv to make peace. Volodymyr Zelensky replied on Sunday, indicating that he “did not believe” that Russia was going to respect this truce.
