Russia slams France’s ‘escalation, direct involvement’ after giving Ukraine SCALP

France’s actions contribute to “escalating” the Ukraine war and contrary to its official statements it “directly involves” Paris in the war, the Russian embassy in France said after Kyiv announced receiving French SCALP long-range cruise missiles.

“The revelations of Ukraine's Ambassador to France… about the military assistance provided by France to Kyiv, as well as plans to increase it, is a confirmation of an obvious fact: contrary to official statements that France is not a party to the conflict, Paris directly is involved in it and by its actions contributes not to the settlement, but to the escalation of the situation,” the embassy statement’s said according to state news agency TASS.

Earlier, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Paris, Vadym Omelchenko, announced that Ukraine has received the first batch of the French SCALP long-range cruise missiles.

“We already have all the SCALP missiles that the French promised to provide as part of the first batch. This batch was a trial, the shells proved themselves well,” Omelchenko said in an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet Left Bank.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced in July that his country will provide Ukraine with the SCALP missiles to help Ukrainian forces strike targets deep behind Russian lines, according to French newspaper Le Monde.

Macron implied, however, that Ukraine had promised not to use the French missiles against any target in Russian territory, “in coherence with our doctrine, that is to say to permit Ukraine to defend its own territory.”

While the French president did not provide details about the quantity of missiles that would be sent, it’s estimated that France has an arsenal of approximately 400 missiles, according to specialist defense review DSI.

At the time of the announcement, Moscow accused Paris of escalating the conflict. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “Despite Russia’s evident ability to counter this threat, such actions constitute an evident and deliberate step towards further escalation of the Ukrainian conflict,” according to state news agency TASS.

She added: “This piece of armament is the French counterpart of UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which are being successfully shot down by Russia’s missile defenses and are already being examined by Russian defense experts.

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