The French government denied on Saturday that French soldiers were on the ground in Ukraine, Le Monde reported.
“There are no French forces engaged in operations in Ukraine,” the team of Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu told the French outlet.
A trove of leaked documents detailing plans about Ukraine’s spring military offensive and circulating online reportedly imply that French soldiers are present on the battlefield in Ukraine. According to the Guardian, “one slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
The material reportedly also includes information on Ukraine’s readiness and training capabilities as well as death tolls.
It’s unclear who originally obtained and leaked the documents, and the extent to which they may have been altered. It could also be “a Russian disinformation operation,” U.S. officials said.
“The documents cited do not come from the French military. We do not comment on documents whose source is uncertain,” Lecornu’s team also told Le Monde.
Laura Kayali
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