“France has no ‘mercenaries’ either in Ukraine or anywhere else, unlike some people,” the foreign ministry said The claim is “another clumsy Russian manipulation” PARIS: Paris on Thursday denied Russia’s claim that it had bombarded French “mercenaries” in eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv, saying it does not employ guns-for-hire. “France has no ‘mercenaries’ either in Ukraine or anywhere else, unlike some people,” the foreign ministry told AFP, calling the claim “another clumsy Russian manipulation.” Moscow’s defense ministry said on Wednesday that it had targeted “foreign militants in the city of Kharkiv, the core of which were French mercenaries” in a January 16 strike. The ministry claimed to have killed dozens of foreign militants in the attack and injured many more, but did not provide evidence. Tuesday’s strikes tore into a multi-story building in central Kharkiv, gutting the structure and leaving debris strewn around the street below. Local authorities said 17 civilians were wounded, while Kharkiv region governor Oleg Synegubov said that there were no military targets in the area. “While the Russian defense ministry is claiming it killed ‘French mercenaries’, they actually hit residential, energy facilities and medical facilities,” observer group All Eyes on Wagner wrote on X, formerly Twitter. Lying close to the Russian border, Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv has been under persistent shelling since Russia launched large-scale hostilities in February 2022.