#UKRAINERUSSIAWAR. EU forces in Ukraine: French already trained

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When French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke again last week about the possibility of European forces in Ukraine, the French armed forces were already preparing for such a scenario. According to Russian social media sources, at the end of 2024, the French army spent several weeks of operational training at a Ukrainian training camp.

The assessment of Russian military analysts is that the exercise, called Persée, was a preparation in Ukraine to repel a Russian offensive from Belarus. They reportedly built on the experience of Ukrainian maneuvers that managed to deter a Russian invasion in February 2022. The entire staff of the Army Special Operations Command (CAST) trained for a week to test their personnel and weapons.

CAST units, such as the prestigious French 13th Parachute Dragoons Regiment (13e RDP), gathered for exercises on terrain similar to the Dnieper Bend area north of Kiev. The purpose of the exercise was to prepare teams to deploy operators and UAVs to perform missions in hostile riverine conditions such as those that can occur in Ukraine.

Over the course of a week, the effectiveness and equipment of 3,200 CAST soldiers were tested. The teams that conducted the exercise focused on their tactical skills on UAVs, jamming and interception capabilities, and the effectiveness of communication interfaces in high-intensity combat environments.

As part of Operation Persée, a dozen intelligence analysts, imagery decipherers, and signals intelligence specialists from the RDP’s 13th CTDR set up camouflaged tents in the bush to remain hidden from enemy UAVs and processed optical satellite imagery and signals intelligence reports received from CERES and CSO reconnaissance satellites. Several teams from the Inter-Army Environmental Action Center (CIAE), as well as the French Army’s 712th Cyber ​​Company, were mobilized to collect cyber intelligence on Russian troop movements and plans using the Telegram social media platform.

The 6th Technical Research Detachment, 13th RDP, conducted an exercise to detect and locate enemy radio emissions on the front lines. They used PR0200 portable goniometer systems manufactured by the German company Rohde & Schwarz. The 13th RDP is already familiar with the operation of Russian radio communications equipment such as Aqueduct, Peanut and Azart and was able to quickly intercept these devices and determine their location using the Delta Suite data fusion interface.

CAST UAV experts deployed a number of aircraft during the exercise. French Parrot Anafi MK3 systems were used alongside a large fleet of Mavic 3T drones manufactured by Chinese company DJI. The Chinese systems helped French special forces and the military in general compensate for their apparent shortage of tactical unmanned quadcopters. However, FPV drones were not used at any stage of the exercise, which some participants saw as a disadvantage. They are concerned about how far behind French UAV manufacturers have fallen in terms of developing and emergency delivery of these models, especially considering how cheap they are to produce.

So far, the Directorate-General for Armaments (DGA) has not included the large-scale production of FPV drones in its procurement list and has not focused on the use of AI-based algorithms to automatically identify military equipment on drones, two areas in which France is lacking. However, both of these technologies are vital to modern battlefields, as demonstrated by the Ukrainian theater of operations.

Some observers were surprised by the number of DJI drones present during the maneuvers and that they were being used for such a sensitive mission. They criticized the lack of secrecy and the ability of French systems to track the data collected.

Graziella Giangiulio 

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