The first carrier, the Vladivostok, had been due for delivery in 2014 the second, named Sebastopol after Crimea’s crucial seaport, was supposed to be delivered by 2016.
The deal stems from his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision in 2011 to make the West’s first major foreign arms sale to Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.īut it will be difficult for Hollande politically and underlines the difficulty for France to reconcile its ambitions as a global arms supplier - a sector on which thousands of French jobs depend - with commitments to NATO allies. It is an embarrassment that is not of French President Francois Hollande’s making. “There are three possibilities: deliver the boats to Russia, sell them to someone else or destroy them,” said a source close to the matter.
Tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine have blocked a deal in which Moscow was to buy the ships, leaving Paris trying to negotiate a face-saving compromise and work out CAwhat to do with two unwanted warships. The two Mistral-class helicopter carriers Sevastopol (Bottom) and Vladivostok are seen at the STX Les Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard site in Saint-Nazaire, western France, May 25, 2015.
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