France disputes EUR840 million refund to Russia for Mistral-class helicopter carriers - source

12:54, 20.05.2015 1 min read

Disagreements concerning the amount of money that France should refund Russia for the failure to supply the Mistral-class helicopter carriers may delay the preparation of the agreement on severance of the contract, a high-ranking source in the sphere of military-technical cooperation told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday.

"France previously received EUR840 million. This amount is being discussed. Paris wants to reduce it, saying it has incurred costs. We are trying to increase it for the same motives, but not radically," the source said.

The source said that another issue is connected to the request made by France to resolve the issue of the helicopter carriers' resale to third-party countries.

"The thing is that Russia holds the end user certificate and has all legal grounds to prohibit the sale of the Mistral-class helicopter carriers to other countries," the source said.