Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that French servicemen in Ukraine in the status of instructors or mercenaries represent a legitimate target for Russian troops.
Reuters reported on 30 May that French President Emmanuel Macron may announce the dispatch of military trainers to Ukraine in the near future. Paris will first send a limited number of personnel to assess the conditions of the mission, and then “several hundred” more military instructors.
According to Sergey Lavrov, French instructors are already working in Ukraine. There are quite a few facts indicating their presence on Ukrainian territory, the minister said.
“Whoever they are labelled as, whether they are members of the French armed forces or are just mercenaries, they represent an absolutely legitimate target for our armed forces,” the Russian foreign minister said at a press conference.
We shall remind you that earlier Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that foreign instructors training Ukrainian soldiers, regardless of their country of origin, do not have immunity from Russian strikes against them.
