No French Mercenaries in Ukraine

Not anymore, anyhow:

The #son of a brigadier #general of the #French #army was #killed by a strike by the Russian Armed Forces at a point of temporary deployment of foreign #mercenaries in #Kharkov. His partner (also killed) came from a hereditary military #dynasty in #France.

According to Mash, the name of the Frenchman eliminated by a high-precision strike is Sabastien Claude Remy Benard. He served in the #RICM (formerly the Moroccan Colonial Infantry Regiment) in the Marine Light Armor unit. For reference: it was these groups that equipped the famous #AMX-10RC wheeled tanks, which Paris proudly sent to #Kiev as military aid. During the process, this scrap metal was deemed unsuitable for mechanized combat.

Benard first arrived in #Ukraine in 2022, but did not receive the desired position in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and returned to his homeland. A year later he tried his luck again and joined the 5th Assault Brigade. On July 3, in the Bakhmut area, he participated in the medical evacuation of his wounded fellow countryman Maxim Leconte (a rifleman from the International Legion of Terrestrial Defense), who publicly admitted that the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive turned out to be a bloody failure. On January 16, he was killed by a Russian missile strike.

His partner is Alexis Drion. He is the son of Frédéric Drion, who became a brigadier general in the French army in 2001. Alex joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces no later than last year. He served in the 2nd Battalion of the International Legion. Also was killed on January 16th.

The remaining 60 killed and about 20 wounded mercenaries are recognized activists of Nazi groups in France and other EU countries. Each of them served in the army and even belonged to a battalion of alpine hunters. Many were fired for inappropriate behavior, after which they left for Ukraine. In total, more than a hundred mercenaries from France died during the fighting in the SVO zone.
– FRWL reports

The Kharkov strike is far from the only one of its kind. Many of the fatal “accidents” that have been reported occurring to US troops around the world are actually combat fatalities taking place in combat zones where US and other NATO troops are not supposed to be; you may recall the US Army Rangers who were killed in another Russian missile strike on a restaurant they frequented a few months ago. This sort of thing isn’t new, as we know, from the early days of the World Wide Web when the #US #military didn’t bother to block open access to its sites, that many soldiers had confirmed kills in places that US troops were not supposed to be.

The active engagement by NATO troops disguised as “mercenaries” is one reason is why I’ve been describing the situation in Ukraine as a NATO-Russian war rather than a Ukro-Russian one for more than the last year. While Ukraine has suffered the bulk of the casualties, the number of #US, #French, #German, and other military casualties will probably shock the various publics when it is finally revealed to them.