France did not deploy troops to Ukraine

The Defense Ministry of France denied that it sent troops to Ukraine when such disinformation on this topic started spreading on the social networks stimulated by Russian sources and their propagandists 

We are fact-checking a post on the social network Facebook sharing a photograph created with a photo-manipulation tool showing the symbol of Paris – Eiffel Tower, “cut” in the middle. The text “After France deployed troops to Ukraine” is part of the photograph. 

As the fact-checkers of the Associated Press specify, the French Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement on the X social networks that France has not deployed troops to Ukraine, calling it disinformation. 

Fake news alert – wrote the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France in a statement posted on its X account. Its information is quoting posts from a blog from the 3rd of May by Stephen Bryen, undersecretary of the Defence Department in Reagan’s administration. 

“The post on his blog does not quote a source attributing such a claim. After that Bryen published a new text on his blog where he acknowledged that he “could be wrong” about the alleged deployment of troops by France to Ukraine. The earliest source cited by Bryen about “France deploying troops to Ukraine” is from the 12th of April, which is a text from a Russian site on Army news. That site, however, specifies that “the information can neither be confirmed, nor denied”, and that it originated from a Russian Telegram channel of a Russian journalist who reported that the information was not confirmed,” inform the Associated Press fact-checkers. 

Ukrainian media describe Bryen as a “Russian propagandist”, and that the articles he signs frequently apply the anti-Western narrative. 

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs explicitly denies sending French troops to fight in the war that Russia initiated in Ukraine. 

“Disinformation campaigns on France’s support to Ukraine are active as ever. Let’s have a look. France has not sent troops to Ukraine,” denied the Defence Ministry. 

Emmanuel Macron, in an interview, stated that he did not exclude the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, after which this disinformation campaign followed. However, Macron did not announce the deployment of troops from the French Army. 

The fact-checkers from Serbian “Istinomer” inform that no evidence confirms that troops were deployed from France to Ukraine. 

The Foreign Legion, whose representatives were believed to be in some areas in Ukraine, was established in 1831, from the 20th century with a seat in the suburb of Marseille, and in the last ten years, it has had several temporal bases in Africa. 

Due to all of the above-noted facts, we assess that it is not true that France deployed troops in Ukraine. 

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