Copyright kyivpost
The trial of four Bulgarian nationals alleged to have desecrated a Second World War memorial in Paris on the Kremlin’s orders began on Wednesday. The Wall of the Righteous honors nearly 4,000 people who protected Jews during the Nazi occupation of France. On the night of May 13-14, 2024, it was daubed with 35 red hand marks. Clement Renault, an intelligence expert at France’s Institute for Strategic Research, said that French intelligence reports included in the court file attribute the “red hands” operation to FSB, the Russian security service, as per AFP. The prosecution is not alone in linking the crime to Moscow. Defense lawyer Martin Vettes, who represents one of the four accused, described them as “mere hands who weren’t even aware they were indirectly serving [the Kremlin’s] interests.” “The shadow of Russia hangs over this courtroom,” he said. Three of the defendants are in French custody – two of whom are alleged to have actually defaced the memorial. A third stands accused of booking them accommodation and transport. A fourth man, who remains a fugitive, is accused of leading the operation. Mircho Angelov is being tried in absentia. The authorities believe that the crime was intended to inflame existing tensions within French society, heightened by an Israeli assault on Gaza which has claimed the lives of over 60,000 Palestinians, according to the UN-backed statistics of Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry. Palestinian terrorist group Hamas massacred more than 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, 51 of whom were French citizens. On Oct. 24, six British men were jailed for carrying out an arson attack on a Ukrainian business on behalf of the Kremlin. The group’s leader was recruited by a member of the Russian Wagner private military group on Telegram.
