Paris Rejects Moscow’s ‘Mercenary’ Claims, Doubles Down on Support for Ukraine

Paris has rejected claims by Moscow that dozens of French “mercenaries” were killed in a recent Russian strike on a facility in Ukraine’s city of Kharkiv. “France helps Ukraine with supplies of military material and military training in full compliance with international law,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a Jan. 18 statement. But it added that NATO member France “has no mercenaries, neither in Ukraine nor elsewhere.” One day earlier, Russia’s military claimed to have carried out a “precision strike” on a facility in Kharkiv, which, it claimed, had been used to house “foreign fighters.” According to a Russian Defense Ministry briefing, more than 60 fighters were killed in the strike, which destroyed the facility....