In July 2023, reports emerged that the North Atlantic Alliance was allegedly planning to send “Ukrainian nationalist battalions” to quell unrest in France. We checked if this is true.

In RuNet, the news spread massively on July 10, mainly on social networks. According to the posts, information about the possible dispatch of Ukrainian paramilitary forces, such as Azov* and Kraken, to France appeared on the official NATO website. It is reported that such an initiative is allegedly being considered by the organization’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Moreover, in terms of records approvedthat the Secretary General only proposed such an idea, but it is no longer relevant.

Authors of some publications counted, that the appearance of such an initiative indicates that “things are really bad for Macron.” In the Telegram channel TarikNezalejko (58,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) the news was commented on as follows: “All this information suggests that in France they are really seriously afraid of the rebellious sentiments on the streets of the cities and, apparently, there are not enough internal power reserves to restore order.” Similar posts appeared in the channels "Sheikh Tamir"(137,000 views), "Rita Ebzeeva"(96,000), "Kot Kostyan - official channel"(92,000), "Military observer"(49,000), "Friedrich" (23,000), "Olesya Loseva" (9000), "Bear" (8000), "Shaman Rahu"(4000), etc. In addition, dozens of similar posts are found in public pages and on the personal pages of users "VKontakte"(examples here, here And here).

Photo: screenshots of posts from the TGStat service

Large-scale street riots in France started after a police officer shot and killed a 17-year-old while driving a car on June 27, 2023. Protests began in Paris and other major cities, accompanied by pogroms of shops, burning of cars and clashes with the police. 4th of July French President Emmanuel Macron statedthat the peak of the unrest had passed. How reported BBC, already on July 5, the protests gradually faded away, but a large number of police patrols remained on the streets of a number of cities. On the same day, at a hearing in the Senate, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin saidthat there is a “return of calm” throughout the country. Already July 6 Macron announcedthat order has been restored on the streets of French cities.

It turns out that by July 10, when NATO allegedly considered the possibility of introducing Ukrainian forces into French territory to suppress protests, the mass unrest had actually ended. Then the question arises: was such an initiative not discussed at the peak of protest activity?

As noted above, the viral posts refer to material allegedly published on the official NATO website. Moreover, users often attached a screenshot with text and/or gave it link. The news entitled “NATO meeting to stabilize the situation in France” was published on July 5, 2023 on Russian, English, French And Ukrainian languages. Below is its full text.

Meetings are underway at NATO headquarters regarding the need for assistance to France, which is obviously not able to independently cope with the unrest that has flared up throughout the country. Meanwhile, unrest is already spreading to the territories of neighboring countries, and it is necessary to stop the situation in France itself in order to avoid pan-European uprisings. This can only be done with the help of the armed forces.

At the same time, it is recognized as impossible to apply Art. 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on the provision of assistance, since France was not subject to external attack.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is considering the possibility of attracting Ukrainian paramilitary forces, such as the Azov, Kraken, etc. battalions, to suppress the French unrest (the first was back in February converted into a brigade, and before that it existed as a regiment, the second is not a battalion, but special forces Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. — Approx. ed.), who have extensive experience in combat operations in the city, not only against external enemies, but also against internal opponents of today's Ukrainian government.

Involving paramilitary forces of a NATO partner country to suppress internal unrest in a NATO country will require legal registration of a new practice for the organization, but the need for such a solution is obvious and the registration of the procedure can be carried out as soon as possible.

At first glance, it may seem that the material was actually published on a real NATO resource. Externally, the site exactly repeats the official one: the same design, logo and fonts are used; The official portal of the alliance also translates some of its publications into Russian and Ukrainian. However, if you look more closely, it becomes clear that this is a fake. Authentic website NATO is located in the .int domain zone, used some international organizations. The resource where the news we are reviewing was published has a domain zone Western Samoa - .ws. According to services with information about domain registration, the website nato.ws was created July 5, 2023. Moreover, most of the links in various fake menus lead to the real alliance website or its official accounts on social networks. However, neither on the website nato.int, neither in twitter There is no news from NATO about plans to introduce Ukrainian military units into France.

Also, switching languages on nato.ws does not work the same as on nato.int. For example, in the original, the language menu in the upper right corner is intended to switch the language of the entire site, and to translate individual text there is a language menu under the publication date. In a fake, these two menus perform the same function. Moreover, when switching the language on nato.ws, the news number in the address bar changes (English corresponds to 216762, French - 216763, Russian - 216764, and Ukrainian - 216765), while on nato.int the number is preserved during translation. Among other differences: in the original the file name extension is .htm, and in the fake it is .html.

“Verified” could not find Russian-language references to the fake news and website published earlier on July 10. At the same time, on Twitter we found posts by French-speaking users with a link to the website nato.ws for 6, 7 And July 8.

Thus, unknown persons created a copy of the page of the official NATO website and posted fictitious news on it. At the same time, “Verified” was able to find out that the page was taken as a basis from a real news for July 4 - that the powers of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg were extended for another year. However, the authors of the fake forgot to change the meta description, which is why part of the original text is visible in the snippets.