French Decree No. 2025-1030 — the document Russian outlets point to as proof of Paris allegedly greenlighting a private military company for Ukraine — does nothing of the sort. Instead, it outlines rules for civilian economic operators conducting training and technical missions as part of international military cooperation, with no connection to PMC deployment.
Russian news sites, Telegram channels and assorted online users — all citing a statement from Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) — are pushing the narrative that France is gearing up for “direct participation” in the war in Ukraine. According to the SVR, Paris allegedly adopted a special measure — Decree No. 2025-1030, dated October 31, 2025 — that purportedly authorizes French private military companies to operate in support of Ukraine. Kremlin-linked outlets frame this as a prelude to deploying PMCs on Ukrainian soil and warn that any such personnel would be treated as “legitimate targets” by the Russian military.
However, the assertions bear no resemblance to the decree’s actual content. The document cited by the SVR makes no reference to Ukraine, armed deployments, or private military companies. Instead, it outlines a technical framework governing the work of economic operators who assist France in international military-cooperation programs — including training, instruction, technical support and oversight of arms-export projects. The full text is publicly available on the government’s Legifrance portal.
A close reading of the decree undercuts Moscow’s portrayal: the text frames the need for “reference operators” — civilian contractors tasked with training, technical assistance and knowledge transfer — not combat units. Nowhere does it mention PMCs, mercenaries or offensive missions; instead the measure repeatedly stresses capacity-building, oversight and export-control roles for private economic operators supporting France’s international military-cooperation projects.
French legal specialists have already underlined that the measure neither creates private military companies nor alters longstanding laws that categorically ban mercenary activity. The decree grants no authority for private armed groups to operate on the state’s behalf. As the legal-analysis platform Les Surligneurs points out, the text “does not create private armed groups and does not delegate state authority to them,” and stays squarely within the limits of existing French law.
The decree makes no reference to Ukraine — or to any specific country. Instead, it relies on a broad legal formula: “a third state experiencing a crisis or armed conflict.” Paris has used similar language for decades in international cooperation programs that involve training, technical assistance, or oversight of defense-export projects. Any activity in a particular country would still require a separate intergovernmental agreement — a detail Russian outlets, unsurprisingly, omit.
The decree’s actual provisions not only fail to support the notion that Paris is laying the groundwork for French PMCs — they flatly contradict the logic of the Russian narrative. The text spells out strict selection procedures for contractors, mandates that they be legally registered in an EU or EEA member state, and subjects them to detailed framework agreements and enforcement mechanisms. Sanctions for violations range from financial penalties to outright termination of cooperation. Far from enabling “covert intervention,” the framework underscores how tightly regulated and transparently governed this activity is — the opposite of what Russian outlets claim.
Claims that France is laying legal groundwork for intervention in Ukraine fit a long-running Kremlin narrative portraying Paris as ready to “send troops to Odesa,” “seize Ukraine’s natural resources,” or “deploy instructors to combat zones.” The SVR’s statement is the latest example of how Moscow distorts official documents to sustain its political messaging and alarm Western audiences with the specter of a supposed “French entry into the war.”
Earlier, StopFake refuted similar disinformation alleging that France was “covertly transferring troops” to Ukraine via Romania.
