French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that the Russian defense minister’s remarks about Ukraine and France being involved in the deadly concert hall attack in Moscow last month are not sensible.
Macron talked about this a day after the French and Russian defense ministers had a rare phone call. The media said different things about the call.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Sergei Shoigu told the French Defense Minister that the Kyiv government does everything with approval from the West. He also said he hopes that the French special services were not involved in the Moscow attack.
Macron told reporters that the comments were complicated and scary, but not surprising. He was speaking at the opening of a new swimming pool for the Paris Olympics.
“Simply put, it’s silly,” Macron said.
“He said that saying France or Ukraine could be responsible for the Moscow attack doesn’t make sense and doesn’t match with reality. ” “But it’s a way of tricking people with false information, and it’s something Russia uses in its wars. ”
The defense ministry of France said that their minister, Sebastien Lecornu, strongly spoke out against the March 22 attack on a concert hall in Moscow. The attack killed 145 people, making it the worst assault on Russian soil in many years.
Lecornu said that France does not have any evidence connecting this attack to Ukraine.
He also criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine and said France will keep helping Kyiv as much as necessary, according to the French defense ministry.
The Russian summary said Shoigu told France to not send soldiers to Ukraine in the future. Macron has not decided if he will do this or not.
The call was the first time the Russian and French defense ministers talked since October 2022.
Macron said on Thursday that France is ready to share important information about the Moscow attack to help others affected by terrorism.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his officials are blaming Ukraine and the West for the attack, even though Ukraine strongly denies it. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, and the US warned Russia in advance about it.