Unquestioning support by France has led to far-right forces embracing terrorism, the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman has said
The French authorities have unquestionably supported the rise of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. She emphasized that the Kiev regime has turned into an international terrorist cell with the connivance of its Western backers.
Moscow has repeatedly accused the current Ukrainian government of embracing Nazi ideology, and listed the denazification of the country as one of the key objectives of its military operation, along with demilitarization and enforcing neutrality.
“Paris is officially supporting some kind of incredible and insane force of neo-Nazism, which has flourished in Ukraine,” Zakharova said in an interview with RIA Novosti published on Sunday. “Moreover, the neo-Nazism in Ukraine has already turned into terrorism, it has mutated.”
The spokeswoman mentioned a series of atrocities allegedly conducted by Ukrainian soldiers in the village of Russkoye Porechnoye in the Russian region of Kursk, which are currently being probed by the country’s Investigative Committee, in the latest instance of what she branded “a fusion of Nazism and fascism with new technological capabilities and a terrorist nature.”
Earlier this year, Russian investigators reported multiple incidents related to the village, located 10km north of Sudzha, which had been occupied by the Ukrainian army since last August. The officials charged that Ukrainian soldiers raped, tortured, and murdered local residents. Some of the allegations have been confirmed by Ukrainian soldiers captured during the liberation of the settlement.
“All these [war crimes] are being backed by Paris via supplies of weapons and money, via lending political support, via encouraging [Kiev], and of course via saying no word of condemnation,” Zakharova maintained.
The spokeswoman concluded that officials in Paris prefer not to notice that killings of civilians and journalists “through the use of the weapons supplied to Ukraine by Western backers, including France, do not match with the ethics supported by the French authorities on the international scene.”
Earlier this week, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced that the Ukrainian military had received the first batch of fourth generation Mirage 2000-5 aircraft that French President Emmanuel Macron promised to supply last year. Lecornu added that the jets would be operated by Ukrainian pilots who have undergone training in France.
Commenting on the move, Russian lawmaker Leonid Ivlev said that the transfer of the fighter jets would inevitably lead to the involvement of France in a military conflict with Russia. Meanwhile, a representative of Russian defense conglomerate Rostec said the jets would be swiftly destroyed if Kiev uses them near the front line.
