DISINFO: Dozens of French mercenaries killed in Russian missile strike on Kharkiv
SUMMARY
Russian strikes on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv destroyed a temporary deployment point housing foreign mercenaries fighting on Ukraine's side, killing over 60 fighters, most of them French nationals. These revelations provide additional evidence of France's under publicised involvement in NATO's proxy war against Russia.
RESPONSE
Pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative claiming that foreigners fighting for Ukraine are mercenaries.
The report provides no evidence to support the claim, as pointed out by numerous international media outlets including Reuters, France 24, The Moscow Times, Barron's, and others. Moreover, the French authorities dismissed the claim by stating that ""France has no 'mercenaries' either in Ukraine or anywhere else, unlike some people," and called the assertion "another clumsy Russian manipulation."
On the general issue of foreign soldiers:
Another issue is that Ukraine has called on experienced foreign nationals to join its foreign legion, whose members are regular soldiers of the Ukrainian Army as opposed to mercenaries.
In the event that such soldiers would become prisoners of war, as pointed out by experts, the nationality of the soldier is not an issue:
"Combatants are members of the armed forces of a party to the conflict or volunteers corps incorporated therein. According to the ICRC Commentary to Article 4, the requirement for membership in the armed forces, or the incorporation of the volunteer corps, is a matter of domestic regulation. But the incorporated unit must be a professional fighting force, fulfilling the criteria spelled out in Article 4A(2) of GC III, and be subordinate to the regular army command. The fact that an individual is a national of a third State and not a national of the armed forces in which they are serving is widely considered to be irrelevant when it comes to determining combatant or POW status."
See a similar case Nazi mercenaries from Europe fight in Ukraine.