Russia launches international tender for warship procurement
13 Sep 2010
Source: Georgian Daily
A regular session of the Franco-Russian Council for Security Cooperation quickly turned into another French embarrassment over Russian procurement of Mistral-class warships. The Russian defense and foreign affairs ministers, Anatoliy Serdyukov and Sergei Lavrov, officially informed their French counterparts and President Nicolas Sarkozy that Moscow is launching an international tender for the construction of two Mistral-analogue power-projection ships for the Russian navy. Shipyards from at least two other NATO countries and Russia are being invited to compete, alongside the French, for Moscow’s procurement order.
The tender is meant, in the short term, to pressure Paris over the financial and technical terms of the Mistral deal. Beyond the short term, however, the tender seeks to broaden Russia’s options for naval and other military procurement in Western countries.
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