Russia made a “threatening” call to France warning that it hopes French secret service agents were not involved in last month’s terror attack in Moscow.
“The comments by the Russian side were bizarre and threatening,” Emanuel Macron, the French president, told reporters, adding that any suggestions France might have been involved in the deadly attack were “ridiculous”.
Details of the call came as Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said that relations between Russia and Nato “have now slipped to the level of direct confrontation” on the 75th anniversary of Nato.
On Wednesday, Sebastien Lecornu, the French defence minister, reached out to his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, saying France was ready to step up exchanges to battle “terrorism”, the French defence ministry reported.
The talks, the first between the two countries since 2022, were intended to express “solidarity” following the attack, in which at least 144 people were killed at a concert venue outside Moscow, and to share intelligence on its origin, Mr Macron said.
