EditKremlin connection: what a Le Pen-led government in France would mean for Ukraine
Despite its evolution, financial and ideological ties with Moscow still cast a long shadow over Marine Le Pen’s party
If early elections in France were to deliver Marine Le Pen’s National Front an outright majority, the country could see, for the first time in history, a government led by the far right. For Ukraine, as well as for many in France, such a scenario would amount to a political shock.
From anti-communism to anti-Americanism
Founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, the then National Front rose from the ashes of ultraconservative Catholic nationalism, fierce Euroscepticism and nostalgia for France’s colonial grandeur. Long relegated to the political margins, the party transformed as economic shocks and mainstream disillusionment created fertile ground for its rhetoric.
Initially, the movement was defined by its anti-communism. After 1989, the external enemy shifted. The collapse of the Soviet bloc was not seen by the National Front as the triumph of democracy, but as the rise of a new hegemon: the United States.
The 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo marked a turning point. While French elites sometimes reluctantly endorsed the campaign, Le Pen condemned it as an “American-led colonial war”, and elevated Serbia into a symbol of resistance to Western dominance. Russia’s opposition to NATO’s actions opened the way to a strategic convergence. By the early 2000s, admiration for “strong” leaders like Vladimir Putin replaced Cold War anti-communism.
Ukraine, in this narrative, was reduced to a “buffer state” manipulated by the West, long before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.
A Russian loan that changed everything
For years, the National Front struggled to secure loans from French banks. In 2014, just months after the annexation of Crimea, the party obtained a €9.4 million loan from the Moscow-based First Czech-Russian Bank. The contract was signed by party treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just after negotiations in the Russian capital.
When the bank collapsed in 2016, the debt was transferred to Aviazapchast, a Russian aerospace firm later blacklisted by US sanctions. The loan remains outstanding, with repayments scheduled until 2028. Investigative outlets such as Mediapart and France Info have traced opaque restructurings and links to sanctioned entities, fuelling suspicions that the credit was never a mere commercial transaction.
The 2017 presidential campaign revealed Moscow’s expected return on investment. Russian state media gave Marine Le Pen disproportionate favourable coverage, while in March that year she was received in the Kremlin by Vladimir Putin, just two weeks before the first round of voting.
Although she ultimately lost, the alignment between the far right and the Kremlin became entrenched. Party deputies routinely abstained from parliamentary resolutions condemning Russian repression or backing Ukraine.
The war and forced adjustments
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 forced a partial shift. Public opinion in France overwhelmingly backed Ukraine, and Le Pen’s campaign quietly withdrew leaflets showing her handshake with Putin. She condemned the invasion, but avoided calling Putin an aggressor, instead blaming NATO’s “provocations”.
Her MPs abstained in March 2022 when the National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to support Ukraine. Later, they opposed sanctions on Russian gas, citing economic risks. Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s successor as party leader, began to soften rhetoric, praising Ukrainian “courage” while rejecting measures such as further support for Ukraine that could “escalate” the war.
This ambiguity persisted. National Rally deputies abstained again in March 2025 on a resolution to channel frozen Russian assets into Ukraine’s reconstruction, citing “financial sovereignty”.
A lasting financial and political tether
Le Pen insists that the Russian loan is a “closed chapter”. Yet reporting by Le Monde and Mediapart has shown that the debt has not been refinanced through French banks, despite the party’s ability to do so. France’s domestic intelligence service DGSI has warned that the unresolved debt constitutes a channel of foreign influence.
President Emmanuel Macron himself accused Le Pen in January 2025 of maintaining a “financial umbilical cord with the Kremlin” – remarks that prompted her to storm out of the National Assembly.
France is not a secondary player. It is a nuclear power, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and a cornerstone of EU decision-making. A government led by Bardella or Le Pen could scale back military support for Ukraine, block EU sanctions, and undermine European unity, all under the guise of neutrality.
For Ukraine, the danger is stark: the possible loss of one of its strongest allies in Europe, at a time when sustained Western backing remains critical for its survival.
A longer original version of this article in Ukrainian can be found here.
Caption: French presidential candidate and far-right Front National political party’s leader Marine Le Pen (L) speaks during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, 24 March 2017. EPA/MICHAEL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN / POOL
Updated: September 17, 2025 - 16:12
