War in Ukraine: when a fake recruitment site impersonates the French Ministry of the Armed Forces

Alexandre Bozio with AFP 4:28 p.m., March 28, 2024

This is called pure and simple disinformation. The French Ministry of the Armed Forces denounced this Thursday on X (formerly Twitter) a website which usurped its identity by using the official logo of the ministry and which invited the French to "get involved in Ukraine". The fake site in question encouraged volunteers to give their contact details so that they could be contacted later. This method may also suggest the reuse of this personal data for malicious purposes.  

#Disinformation. The URL of a “get involved in Ukraine” site which uses the graphic charter of government sites is currently circulating on X. This site is a fake government site, relayed on social networks by malicious accounts, for a… pic.twitter.com/SuVUrocVPk

— Ministry of the Armed Forces (@Armees_Gouv) March 28, 2024

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The signature of the pro-Russians

This operation particularly resembles actions attributed to pro-Russian groups. Note that the Kremlin recently announced the sending of 2,000 French soldiers to Ukraine, information, again, quickly denied by the French government through a press release. “The maneuver orchestrated by Sergey Naryshkin, director of Russian foreign intelligence, once again illustrates Russia's systematic use of disinformation. We consider this type of provocation to be irresponsible.”

According to our colleagues at BFMTV, the fake site was registered on March 15, a few hours after the television interview given by Emmanuel Macron during which he "assumed" the possibility of sending Western soldiers to Ukraine. On the page in question, we could also find misleading elements about potential rewards for volunteer soldiers such as "a 100% discount on funeral services", a bonus "of 1 million euros to the family in the event of death ", or even a salary of "5,000 euros gross per month". It was also possible to find out about the profiles of 70 fake soldiers willing to discuss with the volunteers. 

Even if officially no lead was mentioned by the Ministry of the Armed Forces, a senior French official told AFP that it bore "the mark of a Russian or pro-Russian device, as part of the disinformation campaign according to which the French army is preparing to send men to Ukraine. Everything converges: the narrative, the method. There is a maneuver", he added on condition of anonymity. The site was deactivated by the French services and the ministry made it clear that the address http://sengage.fr is the only valid one for joining the Army.