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Russia had so far paid 785 million euros for the warships, one of which was to be delivered last fall and the other later this year. Last September, Hollande suspended the deal under pressure from North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, as Russia looked increasingly involved in the eastern Ukraine fighting. Russia initially talked of a multi-billion-dollar indemnity prescribed by the contract. In April, however, Putin said he wouldn’t demand “any indemnities or over-the-top punitive damages.” Instead, Russia asked France to compensate its outlay for new port infrastructure and the upkeep and training of the ships’ crews.

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If Kommersant’s number is correct, France has accepted some of these claims to Moscow’s satisfaction, avoiding a diplomatic spat. Moreover, the newspaper reported that the French government did its best to transfer the funds quietly, lest they be arrested by the shareholders of the defunct oil company Yukos, who won a US$50 billion verdict against Russia and are hunting for Russian state assets throughout Europe. The deal was struck “in a spirit of partnership,”tweeted Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister for Russia’s military industrial complex.

Rogozin never liked the Mistral contract. “I have always considered it essentially the private affair of Comrade Serdyukov,” he said last year, referring to disgraced former Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who was fired in the midst of a corruption scandal in 2012. The Defence Ministry has never been able to adequately explain why it needed the Mistrals. In 2009, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, then Russian navy commander, said the Mistrals could have been helpful in the brief 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. They would have allowed the Russian Black Sea Fleet to seal off Georgia’s sea border in 40 minutes, rather than the 26 hours it actually took, he said. Russia, however, didn’t necessarily need to spend 1.2 billion euros on that kind of time gain, especially since the war was already won.