France Just Fired The Guy In Charge Of Selling Warships To Russia
Tomas Hirst ■ Last week, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's deputy prime minister in charge of the defence industry and prominent nationalist, released a letter on Twitter purportedly from French arms industry company DCNS regarding the sale of the Mistral class ships. The letter states that the handover ceremony of the Vladivostok would take place on 14 November in Saint-Nazaire and includes:
• Signing of the transfer of ownership and delivery act.
• Hoisting of the Russian Federation colours.
• A military ceremony on the flight deck.
You might have thought that this would be the end of the saga. The invitation to the ceremony had gone out, and been made public. Yves Destefanis, a project director responsible for delivering the Mistral helicopter carrier to Russia, may even have had similar thoughts. Instead, Destefanis lost his job after Michel Sapin, the French Finance Minister, reasserted that the "conditions today have not been met to deliver the Mistral". So where are we now? Frankly, we have no idea. The EU and the US are going to continue to pressure France to hold onto the ships. France is going to continue to claim that it's allowed to sell them but do nothing about it. Russia is going to get increasingly angry that they've paid for them, are technically allowed to receive them and yet are having to view their ship from afar. And the Vladivostok is going to extend its quiet stay in Saint-Nazaire.