Truth: The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on X that France has not deployed troops to Ukraine, calling the claim “disinformation.”
Reports of the deployment cited a May 3 blog post by Stephen Bryen, a deputy undersecretary for the Department of Defence during the Reagan administration.
“France has sent its first troops officially to Ukraine,” the blog post reads. “They have been deployed in support of the Ukrainian 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in Slavyansk. The French soldiers are drawn from France’s 3rd Infantry Regiment, which is one of the main elements of France’s Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère).”
It adds that 100 French troops out of an expected 1,500 have arrived so far.
Many social media posts included a screenshot of the blog post as it appeared republished on another website. One such X post had received more than 3,000 likes and shares as of Friday.
But the French Foreign Ministry explicitly denied a deployment of French troops to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war.
“FAKE NEWS ALERT,” it wrote on X. “Disinformation campaigns on France’s support to Ukraine are as active as ever. Let’s have a look. France has not sent troops to #Ukraine.”
Macron said in an interview published on May 3 that he hasn’t excluded the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine, echoing comments he has made in recent months. He did not announce any deployments of the French military.
The claim spreading online cited a post published May 4 on Bryen’s blog titled, “France Sends Troops to Ukraine.” The post does not attribute its reporting to any sources.
