private military companies. war in Ukraine. Zelenskyy. Macron. russian propagand

In recent weeks, several powerful disinformation campaigns by russian special services have targeted France. The russians used French Decree No. 2025-1030 as evidence of preparations for war in Ukraine. Of course, russian propaganda translated the content of the document at its own discretion, i.e. untruthfully. In addition, read about other recent fakes targeting the French audience in this article.

russian media, citing a statement by the russian Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS), are spreading claims that France is allegedly preparing for ‘direct participation’ in the war against Ukraine. In its publication, the FIS states that the French government has adopted a special document – Decree No. 2025-1030 of 31 October 2025, which allegedly legalises the use of French private military companies (PMCs) on the side of the Ukrainian armed forces. kremlin representatives threaten that such structures will become a ‘legitimate target’ for the russian army.
In reality, these statements have nothing to do with the actual content of the document. The decree referred to by the FIS does not concern Ukraine, military operations, or private military companies. It describes a completely different mechanism: the rules governing economic operators who can assist France in international military cooperation in various fields (education, training, technical support, and arms export support). The full text of the document is published on the official government portal Legifrance: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000052472683
If you read this document carefully, it becomes clear that there is no mention of ‘private military companies’, “mercenaries” or ‘combat missions’ in the document. French legal experts have also added their explanation: https://factuel.afp.com/doc.afp.com.84QL8KE
According to russian propaganda, France has long been planning to ‘send troops to Odesa,’ ‘deploy instructors to the combat zone,’ or ‘claim mineral resources on the territory of Ukraine.’ However, none of these assumptions has been confirmed by any documentary evidence. So, we have another example of the distortion of official NATO documents, which moscow uses purely to support its own political narrative and intimidate Western audiences with the imaginary ‘involvement’ of France (or any other country) in the war.
Fake: Bloomberg published an infographic showing how Zelenskyy ‘plundered’ France.
An infographic with the Bloomberg logo has been circulating online, in which the publication allegedly compares the losses from the robbery of the Louvre with France's contribution to military aid to Ukraine. russian propaganda emphasises that the amount of aid provided to Ukraine is equivalent to 84 robberies of the Louvre. However, this infographic is fake. Bloomberg did not publish such statistics. 
The image states that the infographic was allegedly distributed by the publication on 3 November 2025, but on that day Bloomberg published only two articles on Ukraine, and they did not mention the story about the robbery of the Louvre. However, the statistics are correct: France has provided Ukraine with a total of €8.6 billion in military aid.
Incidentally, Guillaume Ancel, a retired French officer and military expert, believes that France's contribution is disproportionately low compared to the aid provided to Ukraine by, for example, the United States (almost $115 billion since 2022): ‘Based on this, in order to maintain proportionality, France should have invested between €10 billion and €20 billion, as the country is part of the coalition of the willing and sincerely supports Ukraine.’ Therefore, the claim that ‘the French budget is being plundered’ is pure manipulation by russian propaganda.
Fake: Governments in Europe are collapsing one after another because of their support for Ukraine.
russian television aired a story about how support for Ukraine is harming Europeans: "Governments in Europe are falling because of Ukraine. Just the other day, former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz admitted that his cabinet collapsed precisely because of Ukraine. British prime ministers have been ‘burning’ on Zelenskyy one after another. French President Macron has also lost a lot of ground in the polls."
In an interview with Die Zeit, Scholz did indeed admit that one of the issues that led to the collapse of the ruling coalition was related to Ukraine. But it concerned the mechanisms and principles of government funding distribution (in particular, the ‘debt brake’ – an amendment to the German Basic Law adopted in 2009). At the same time, there was no disagreement within Scholz's government about whether to help Ukraine. In March 2025, the Bundestag passed a constitutional amendment softening the ‘debt brake.’ Scholz welcomed this decision in the aforementioned interview with Die Zeit.
The series of resignations in British governments is not related to Ukraine at all. The policy of any government in Britain towards Ukraine has been criticised very rarely. The current government, led by Keir Starmer, is consistent in this regard – support for Ukraine remains high.
As for the decline in Emmanuel Macron's popularity, it is also due to domestic political reasons. There is no evidence that the French people oppose Macron's efforts to help Ukraine defend itself against russian aggression.

Fake: French general offered to sacrifice his children for Ukraine.
russian media: “On November 18, the newly appointed Chief of Defense Staff said that France must be ready to “accept losing its children” in an inevitable confrontation with Russia on the territory of Ukraine.”
This is a blatant distortion of a comment by the Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Fabien Mandon. His exact words are here: https://www.politico.eu/article/top-general-fabien-mandon-warns-france-must-accept-losing-children-in-possible-russia-war-triggering-uproar/
It should be noted that Mandon’s statements were perceived in society as very controversial. But in reality, the general was not referring to the war in Ukraine, but to the threat of a potential war on EU territory, caused by further russian aggression if Ukraine capitulated. Similarly, his speech made no mention of “plebs.” The deliberate introduction of this term into the disinformation story by the russians is an attempt at emotional manipulation (an oft-repeated russian plot about Western elites acting against the interests of their citizens). These fakes are intended to influence the French audience against continuing aid to Ukraine.
Based on materials from Stopfake.org, Spravdi.ua
Read also Fake: The EU is preparing to divide Ukraine