A Frenchman who was going to fight alongside Ukrainian soldiers against Russia jumped on a mine in Donbass (East) at the end of November and is now awaiting his repatriation, organized by the Quai d’Orsay, according to the person concerned and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“I was wounded on November 27 in a forest, when our battalion was beginning to enter the Lugansk region, northeast of Svatove,” in eastern Ukraine, where fighting is taking place against Russian forces, Maxime Bronchain told AFP. , 32, currently undergoing treatment at a military hospital in the capital.
fear of losing balance
“I jumped on a mine, I am seriously injured in my left foot. An American who was with me jumped on a mine and then a second while he was coming to help me. He died during his evacuation,” details the Frenchman, who was part of a reconnaissance unit. of about twenty foreign fighters, “including five Frenchmen”, within the International Legion.
He has undergone five operations since his injury and refused amputation, but now fears losing his foot. In contact with the French embassy in Ukraine, he is now awaiting repatriation to France.
“There is a high risk of infection and Ukrainians have a shortage of morphine,” his brother Florent worries.
“I want to be useful”
“The French Embassy in Ukraine, together with the crisis and support center, provides the necessary assistance to our compatriot, as we do to all French people in difficulties abroad,” the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented on Monday, assuring that “Given his situation, our compatriot will be transported out of Ukraine with a view to being evacuated to France.”
The Quai d’Orsay “wants to remind you on this occasion of the risks associated with traveling to Ukraine, which is classified in the red zone. Any trip, whatever its nature, is formally discouraged,” he added in a message.
Employed in catering in eastern France, Maxime Bronchain decided to leave for Ukraine in May, “to respond to the call of President (Volodymyr) Zelensky”, who, as soon as the Russian invasion of his country at the end of February, had invited openly encourage foreigners to join an “international legion” to defend Ukraine, he says. Military for a year in the French army when he was 18 years old, he “wanted to be useful”, he testifies.
“The people here receive us as liberators, they take us in their arms.”
Father of a child who stayed in France, Maxime intends to marry a Ukrainian from Odessa, known in the country at war.
Source: BFM TV
