Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov then said that Russia would wait for the final decision of Paris and would not make any claims, but only act in strict accordance with the contract. For a long time, DCNS claimed that the US and the policy of sanctions against Russia would not interfere with the construction and handover of the Mistrals.



The contract was not terminated until nine months later - in August 2015 Moscow and Paris officially declared: the Mistral theme was closed. The Kremlin press service reported on August 5: "The President of the Russian Federation and the President of the French Republic made a joint decision to terminate the contract for the construction and delivery of two Mistral class landing helicopter dock ships, signed in June 2011."



As a result of the agreement, Russia should fully receive reimbursement of the amounts paid in advance under the contract. Termination payments on the contract amounted to about 950 million euros. As explained in the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Rosoboronexport, it turned out that Russia received almost twice more than paid in advance for the ships in ruble equivalent due to devaluation of the ruble.



Russia had to approve the resale of the Mistrals by France to a third party. Before the handover to the new owners, it was necessary to remove all Russian equipment from the ships, in particular the communication system, the online newspaper Gazeta.ru recalls.



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Navy Recognition Comment

Russian Krylov State Research Center has developed the Priboy LHD on its own initiative. It is significantly different from the Mistral landing helicopter dock designed by French DCNS. Priboy is intended for seaborne movement of troops and military equipment and landing on beaches during amphibious operation in conjunction with other naval forces. It can support projection of soldiers and hardware, take part in offensive mining actions and mount sonar beacons of suspended array surveillance systems.





Priboy has a normal surface displacement of 23,000 t, a length of 200 m, a width of 34 m, a designed draft of 7.5 m, a full speed of 20 kn, a cruise speed of 14 kn, an endurance of 6,000 nmi or 30 days. The LHD can withstand storms of force 6-7 on the Beaufort scale (strong breeze/near gale). The ship has a crew of 400 sailors and can transport 500-900 soldiers, about 50 infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) and 10 main battle tanks (MBT).

Up to 12 military-transport and search-and-rescue (SOR) helicopters can be based on Priboy. The ship incorporates six fast landing craft with 45 t lifting capacity each and six assault boats located on davits.

Polyakov pointed out that Priboy is equipped with tactical-level integrated combat management system. The LHD features electronic warfare (EW) and hydroacoustic hardware that includes three-axis detection radar, navigation system, integrated EW and communication suites and underwater sabotage forces detection system.

The Priboy`s armament suite includes two anti-air gun-missile combat modules, two close-in weapon systems and one 76mm naval gun.