Paris Takes Steps to Compensate Moscow for Undelivered Mistral Warships

The Vladivostok amphibious assault ship of the Mistral class at the STX Europe shipyard in Saint-Nazaire

02.07.2015 sputniknews.com

According to a source in the joint technical-military venture responsible for the warships' construction, Paris and Moscow have made a preliminary agreement on compensation for France’s non-delivery of the Mistral-class helicopter carriers.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Paris and Moscow have preliminarily agreed on compensation for France’s non-delivery of the Mistral-class helicopter carriers and will continue consultations in July, a source in the military technical cooperation said Thursday.

“Russia and France were unable to agree on a preliminary compensation for the non-delivery of the Mistrals in June. ‘Preliminary’ because the decision needs to be approved now by the governments of both countries,” the source told RIA Novosti.

He said that the next stage in consultations would be held in July.

Earlier, the press reported that France was apparently prepared to return approximately 800 million euros to Moscow, however, Moscow has insisted on 1.1 billion euros in compensation.

In 2011, Russia and France signed a $1.5-billion contract on the delivery of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers. Paris did not fulfill its side of the deal, accusing Moscow of involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, a claim that Russia has repeatedly denied.

In April, French President Francois Hollande said Paris would return Moscow's payment for the warships if the contract was terminated.