Russia carried out a successful strike against dozens of mercenaries in Kharkov last week that ended up killing at least five dozen of them, the majority of whom were reported to be French. Moscow blamed Paris for their deaths by turning a blind eye to them traveling to Ukraine, which Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu claimed that his country is powerless to prevent because “we are still a democracy”. That sheepish response lent credence to the Kremlin’s claims and left the Elysse with egg on its face.
What just took place was a powerful blow to French prestige since it represents the largest single loss of its mercenaries in recent memory. It remains unclear exactly how qualified each of the deceased were, such as if they were naïve self-styled “volunteers” or had prior experience with their armed forces, but Russia’s strike nevertheless taught France a lesson that it won’t soon forget. Turning a blind eye to its citizens’ mercenary activity in Ukraine backfired by leading to a major loss of prestige instead of the expected gains.
Paris thought that the dispatch of its citizens to that country would imbue their own with “glory” after they came back from their “safari” with a bunch of stories to tell about how many Russians they killed. Fighting against Russia isn’t the same as fighting against non-state actors in Africa, however, since the first has the technological prowess to kill these mercenaries before they even know what happened. That’s exactly what occurred after they took Russia’s media-reported “weakness” for granted.
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The Mainstream Media spent the first 18 months of the special operation from February 2022 till the undeniable failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive in August 2023 peddling fantasies about how quickly the West was about to crush Russia via their Ukrainian proxies. The idea that Russia would repel that unprecedented assault and then put Ukraine back on the defensive was deemed impossible, which is why many traveled there to participate in this supposedly historic operation to get some of the “glory”.
Even though Mainstream Media radically recalibrated their official narrative about this conflict from fall onward, many mercenaries still didn’t believe that Ukraine had already lost and that all the fighting since then is basically aimed at perpetuating the conflict for the military-industrial complex’s sake. They remained naively delusional about its dynamics and couldn’t imagine that Russia is anywhere near as formidable as it actually is, which explains why they still continued traveling to Ukraine to fight it.
It’s therefore not just the French government that’s to blame for the deaths of its mercenaries like the Kremlin claimed, but also the Mainstream Media for imbuing them with completely false perceptions about this conflict that led to them wanting to travel there for “glory” in the first place. Instead of receiving what they came for, they’ll now be sent back in body bags (if any identifiable pieces of them remain that is), with all the ignominy that they and their country just brought upon themselves.
French prestige will struggle to recover from Russia’s powerful blow since its mercenary community and permanent bureaucracy alike are still in a state of shock. All that it took to give them both an unforgettable reality check from the Mainstream Media’s lies was one attack in Kharkov last week. The most misguided among them might still travel to Ukraine regardless and continue warmongering against Russia respectively but society as a whole should reflect on whether staying the course is really worth it.
