Letter to Mr Gabriel Attal concerning the misleading rhetoric of Thierry Clerc, lawyer for the Russian vessel “Shtandart”, circumventing European sanctions

Thierry Clerc, Clerc & Partners, the lawyer counsel to the Shtandart, a vessel in breach of European sanctions, has revealed his panic at the prospect of a sixty-member Ukrainian association’s draft letter to Mr Gabriel Attal, President of the France-Ukraine Friendship Group at the French National Assembly. The prebendary of Russian Vladimir Martus has sent our former Prime Minister a jumble of documents in support of his usual rhetoric aimed at creating confusion. His misleading pamphlet is debunked here.

To the attention of:
Mr Gabriel Attal
President of the France-Ukraine Friendship Group
French National Assembly
gabriel.attal@assemblee-nationale.fr

Re:
Shtandart‘s case, debunking of a letter from Thierry Clerc, lawyer for Russian Vladimir Martus, violating EU port sanctions

March 24, 2025

Dear Mr Attal,

The lawyer Thierry Clerc, who is advising Vladimir Martus, a man close to the Russian regime and the captain while concealed owner of the Shtandart, in his efforts to circumvent European port sanctions imposed in the wake of the Bucha massacres, wrote to you on March 18, 2025 (Fr). His purpose was to denounce a letter currently being signed by some sixty Ukrainian organizations from France, Spain and Ukraine, calling for an end to a fraud against EU regulations that has been going on for nearly three years. To this end, and in the interests of omerta, the lawyer at the Rouen bar is using the tricks to which we are accustomed by networks of influence and their collaborators working to the benefit of Russian interests.

Since I don’t want to bother you with the lengthy explanations that would be required to demystify the misleading presentation of legal texts, unfounded allegations, untruths, internal contradictions and personal attacks that abound in the letter and the 51-page jumble of appendices from the lobbyist, I’ll confine myself to two comments: one on the letter and one on the attachments.

Thierry Clerc begins his pamphlet with a false accusation that sets the tone for his approach and aptly illustrates his methods:

“Mr. Grua’s questioning of you as a former Prime Minister stems from the fact that the e-mails from SGMer were written on the Prime Minister’s letterhead, in particular the one dated April 16, 2024, which I enclose as Exhibit 1.

Thierry Clerc, March 18, 2025 (Fr)

So lavish in screenshots, even if it means hijacking them, the prebendary of the Russian ship doesn’t attach a single one in support of his claim that we’ve implicated you. In fact, we wrote in our draft letter :

« …while you were Prime Minister of France (M. Gabriel Attal), significant progress was made towards restoring the rule of law in this case. We are very grateful to you for this.

https://bit.ly/shtandart-national-assembly

We added:

…on July 11, 2024, Thierry Clerc told the Rennes Administrative Court that “The Prime Minister, the Directorate of Maritime Affairs… all have been saying for two years that it (Shtandart) is not subject to European Union regulations.” The “Mer et Marine” newspaper (Fr), reporting his words, adds that “The Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, had, in fact, ‘made contact’ with the Shtandart, on April 16, 2024, so that it ‘changes its flag’ on ‘request of the French government’”.

[We specified.] This is, of course, false. It was not a request from the Prime Minister, but an e-mail sent by Éric Turquet de Beauregard, an employee of SGMer. This fact becomes particularly shocking when one remembers that, according to European instructions, SGMer is not in charge of applying port sanctions or granting any derogations. All the more so as paragraph 2 of Article 3ea of Regulation (EU) No. 833/2014 stipulates that a vessel that has exchanged its Russian flag for that of another country, after February 24, 2022, remains subject to the restrictive measures.

https://bit.ly/shtandart-national-assembly

The rest of the letter from the Shtandart‘s lawyer follows suit.

Let’s look at the attachments. On pages 34 to 38, Thierry Clerc inserts a letter dated October 30, 2024, threatening me with a second SLAPP procedure. He unrolls the same legal mumbo-jumbo he sent you. This has already been rejected by the Rennes Administrative Court on July 11, 2024, and by the Conseil d’Etat on November 18, 2024. We replied in detail on November 14, 2024: Response to Thierry Clerc, lawyer, regarding the attempted SLAPP procedure from Russian ship Shtandart. The syrupy fiction of Vladimir Martus as a “political opponent”, “exile” and “supporter of Ukraine” has also been shattered, there, by verifiable and irrefutable sources. On the contrary, you can discover a promoter of Russian imperialism, an individual with links, including financial ones, with his country’s presidential administration, a national hero in the fight against sanctions and European institutions, a darling of propaganda agencies and the Russian media, with whom he maintains close relations.

I am at your disposal for any further information you may require on this shameful Shtandart affair, which must be brought to an end as soon as possible, as the Spanish rule of law has done.

Please accept, Dear Mr. Attal, the expression of my respectful consideration. I would like to add that I sincerely admire your commitment, and that of President Emmanuel Macron, to our exemplary Ukrainian friends.

Слава Україні!

Разом до перемоги!

Bernard Grua –  + 33***** – Bernard***@***

Websites : https://bernardgrua.net – https://bit.ly/No-Shtandart – https://bit.ly/ensemble24fevrier – https://bit.ly/forum-nantes-ukraine

• Spokesman for the international whistle-blowing collective “No Shtandart In Europe”.
• Lecturer, specializing in Russian propaganda methods
• Coordinator of the forum of Ukrainian associations in Western France
• Member of the committee that obtained the cancellation of Nantes’ Russian film festival, “From Lviv to the Urals”, in March 2022.
• Volunteer at the Franco-Ukrainian association “Tryzub” in Nantes.
• Contributor to Laurent Chamontin’s (Diploweb) geopolitical book “Ukraine et Russie pour comprendre”, as well as to “Informnapalm”, “Ukrinform” and “Ukraine Crisis Media Center”.
• Co-founder and former spokesman of the international collective “No Mistrals for Putin”.
• Photographer of the Maïdan revolution
• Former financial auditor
• Former naval officer
• Graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies

More about Thierry Clerc, the prebendary of Russian Vladimir Martus

Original letter in French