“The Russians warned that the French would be targeted... and the French are afraid of that,” Mercouris said.
In his opinion, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu called his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in order to persuade Moscow to soften its position regarding the Western contingent in Ukraine, as well as to find the basis for “freezing” the conflict.
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron considered “threatening” the comments that Shoigu made in a conversation with Lecornu on April 3.
Later, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that Shoigu spoke to Lecornu not “pretentious and threatening,” but “dignified and to the point.”