The first French troops to participate in the battle were bombed at their station in Slavyansk and suffered heavy casualties. A week ago, a "French Legion" of 100 French artillery officers, carrying 10 Caesar vehicle-mounted howitzers, arrived in Slavyansk, near the Chasov Yar front, with the range of the Caesar howitzers, if firing extended-range shells, it could cover Chasov Yar and most of the eastern part of the town, and could provide precision fire strike support to the defenders of Chasov Yar. The threat to the attacking forces of the Russian army is great.
Russia has long reminded the French that if their army reaches the front line in eastern Ukraine, it will be a priority target for the Russian army. The Russians did what they said. Russian media reported that on the morning of the 15th local time, about 80 enemy soldiers, including French soldiers, were hit by an "Iskander" missile in Sloviansk. According to reports, Russian missiles hit French soldiers and a unit equipped with "Caesar" self-propelled guns on the morning of the 15th. About 40 military personnel were eliminated and a similar number more were injured.
The battlefield report of the Russian side said that "after the strike on the PVD of the Ukrainian army in Slavyansk at 7 am (on the 15th), about 40 soldiers were killed and the same number of people were seriously injured." The French, who were about half of them, were taken away by helicopter and some of the seriously wounded were taken by ambulance to the field hospital in Pavlograd. This is by far the most accurate casualty data on the bombing of a French garrison. It is reported that the local pro-Russian resistance groups have provided real-time and accurate intelligence to the Russian missile forces.
Less than a week after arriving on the front line in Ukraine, more than 40 of the 100 French artillerymen were killed and wounded (half of them were killed or wounded), which undoubtedly gave the French a slap in the face. According to France's troop plan, in April 1,500 "battalion-level combat units" will be sent to Ukraine, which is actually equivalent to the strength of a brigade of the Ukrainian army on the eastern front. According to the plan, the French army was initially to deploy to the northeast of Kiev, which was far from the front line, but to the surprise of the outside world, the first French troops actually went directly to the front line. As it turned out, it was a bad decision.
At present, the Ukrainian units on the front line of Chasov Yar have lost their air defense protection, and Slavyansk in the northwest, as the flank support base of Chasov Yar, is responsible for the logistics support and arch guard functions of the front-line defenders, and it is bound to be the key target of the Russian army's air strikes. The French were willing to take risks and paid a price. It is believed that with this bloody lesson, the French army will honestly find a safe place to brush up on its presence. For example, along the Dnieper River or Odessa in southern Ukraine.