Vive la culture! But for a mutual craving...
production license allowing it to build three more such vessels at Russian shipyards. France is ready to go ahead with the deal, the first such major contract between a NATO country and Russia.Mistral-class ships have become a highly important factor in Russian-French relations, relations between France and NATO and those involving NATO, the EU, France, Poland, the three Baltic states plus Georgia. In fact, the removal of this factor is fraught with extremely painful consequences. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Georgia actively oppose the sale of these ships to Russia, citing the potentially aggressive uses for them in the Baltic and Black Seas.
Nor does Washington want Paris to go ahead with the Mistral deal. France is prepared to sell the ships minus their hi-tech components, so as not to irritate NATO, EU and U.S. partners.
The military aspects of the sale of Mistral-class ships to Russia are being exaggerated but in fact they are not really the
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