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“This contract was signed in 2011, it will be carried out,” Hollande said on May 10 during a visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s electoral district. “For the moment it is not in question.”

While the value of the contract has never been announced, Le Monde newspaper has said it is worth US$1.6 billion to France.

The French rebuff is a setback to European Union efforts to show unity in the face of President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to pull back Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s eastern border.

Russian sailors are scheduled to arrive in France next month for Mistral training. The first warship, built by France’s state-owned military contractor DCNS and the shipbuilder STX, is due in October with the next in 2016. There is an option for another two ships to be built in Russia by OAO United Shipbuilding Corp.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said at a congressional hearing on May 8 that “we have regularly and consistently expressed our concerns about this sale.”

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is among French officials who have said that no decision on the Mistral need be taken until October, and that any cancellation would have to be part of a broader package of sanctions.

The Mistral is a 200-metre ship, capable of carrying as many as 700 combat troops, 16 helicopters and 60 armored vehicles. Some of Russia’s ex-Soviet neighbours, including Georgia and the Baltic countries, expressed concern as long ago as 2011 that the ships could be used against them.