A French national has been killed in battles in Ukraine as Russian military operations entered the country on 100 days, the French Foreign Ministry said Friday, amid controversy over whether it has achieved moscow's targets.
"We have received the sad news that a French citizen has died of his wounds in fighting in Ukraine," the French foreign ministry said in a written statement. We offer our condolences to his family."
In response to an AFP question, a security source said the man was a "fighter who went as a volunteer" to Ukraine, while neither the identity of the deceased nor the place where he was killed was revealed.
"Ukraine in its entire territory has become a battlefield," the French foreign ministry said in a statement.
On Thursday, French radio Europe 1 reported the killing of the "first French fighter" in Ukraine, adding that he had "died of wounds sustained in artillery shelling" in the Kharkiv region in the northeast of the country.
Europe 1 noted that the man "had joined the International Corps for the Defense of Ukraine and was taking part in battles against the Russian army."
At the end of April, the UK announced the death of a Briton and the loss of another trace in Ukraine.
British media reported that the dead citizen was a former British Army soldier named Scott Sibley, and his comrades paid tribute to him on Facebook with the launch of a fundraising campaign.
The media also reported that the Two Britons were fighting against Russian forces as volunteers.
As the war that has claimed thousands of lives so far enters its 100th day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that victory will be Kiev.
Shortly after the start of Russian military operations in his country on February 24, Zelensky called for the formation of an "international corps" of foreign volunteers to help Ukraine.
Since the start of special military operations in Ukraine, Moscow has tripled its territory in the neighbouring country, controlling some 125,000 square kilometers including Crimea and areas of the Donbass region and southern Ukraine, Zelensky said.