At least two “humanitarian workers” were killed and three others injured, French authorities have admitted
Two French nationals were killed and three others injured this week in the hostilities between Kiev and Moscow, the French government said on Friday. Paris insists they were doing humanitarian work on the Ukrainian side.
The announcement was made by French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne, who denounced the incident as an example of “Russian barbarity.”
“Two French humanitarian workers paid with their lives for their commitment to the Ukrainians. Three were injured,” Sejourne wrote on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
A similar message came from French President Emmanuel Macron, who said people he described as volunteers had been killed in a Russian strike. He condemned the attack as a “cowardly and unworthy act.”
While France’s government did not reveal any further details of the affair, the strike that killed the French citizens apparently took place earlier this week in Kherson. According to Aleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Russian region, a number of French “volunteers” were hit in Berislav, a town located some 70km east of Kherson city.
Earlier this month, Russia claimed it killed scores of French mercenaries in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov. The Russian military said it conducted “a high-precision strike on the temporary assembly point of foreign fighters,” killing over 60 of them and injuring some 20 more.
In the wake of the deadly strike on the French nationals, Paris officially denied having any mercenaries fighting for Ukraine. At the same time, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu insisted that France, being a “democratic country,” could not actually forbid its citizens from voluntarily joining Kiev’s ranks, should they desire to do so.
According to Moscow’s latest estimates, more than 5,900 foreign mercenaries have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the conflict in February 2022.
