Russia abandons controversial deal to buy French warships

Russia has scrapped its controversial deal with France to buy two Mistral-class warships and is now designing its own alternative to the vessels, according to a source from Russia's state military industrial complex.

The €1.2bn deal, agreed between Russia and France in 2011, was initially planned to see two Mistral-class helicopter carrier vessels delivered to the Russian military with the first one scheduled to arrive in November 2014.

However, since the dramatic collapse in relations between Russia and the West over the crisis in Ukraine, France has been faced with the diplomatic difficulty of maintaining the European party line against Russian aggression, without permanently cancelling the expensive order.

Now, according to Oleg Bochkarev, the deputy chairman of Russia's military industrial complex commission which oversees the status of arms deals and orders made by the Kremlin, Russia has given up on waiting for the Mistral ships to be delivered.

"That Russia will not receive [the ships] is now fact and at present there is only one discussion being had - namely about the amount of money that should be returned to Russia," Bochkarev told state news agency Itar-Tass today.

According to Bochkarev, Russia is now going to fill the prospective gap in its naval line-up left by the collapse of the Mistral deal by manufacturing the replacements, itself.

"We have planned for such ships, such a project is in the works, however we are going to build them in a different class," he added. "It is not our goal to copy the Mistral-class. But of course [the new ships] will be amphibious ones."

In March the Russian navy's maintenance body already gave indication that Russia had been making plans for life without the Mistral-class ships as its secretary general estimated that the country could design and build "analogous" vessels by 2020, should Paris not fulfill the delivery.

The Mistral-class are among the largest vessels in the French navy and its multiple barges and nearly 2,000 square metres of space allow it to accommodate a landing strip and carry tanks.

France's deal to sell the ships to Russia has attracted criticism from Baltic and other European governments, while the recent decision to halt the delivery has been received negatively by pro-Russian politicians, such as Front National leader Marine Le Pen. Le Pen said last year that France's decision to indefinitely delay the delivery of the Mistral-class ships endangered European security.