Russia Buys French Assault Carrier

As reported in the Russian daily "Izvestia", this past Thursday, Nikolai Makarov, Chief of General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces confirmed that Moscow is buying a French amphibious assault and helicopter carrier ship "Mistral." With this statement, he made clear whether Russia will be dependent on other countries when it comes to defense and military technologies.

The purchase of helicopter carrier became one of the most promising projects of the Russian Ministry of Defense's drive to acquire the most modern weapons and military equipment. According to "Izvestia": "Russia's military has already bought German and Austrian sniper rifles for special forces units. Our tanks are using French "Thales" thermal imagers. The sky over our heads will be protected by the UAVs which fought on the Georgian side in the past year. The approach towards defense procurement is very simple - take only what best guarantees the safety of the soldiers on the battlefield and what can deliver victory in the end."

According to Russian experts, such a drastic move away from purchasing only domestically-produced equipment should not be surprising. According to Ruslan Puhov, director of the defense policy center: "By buying a ship like the "Mistral," Russia is simply trying to act like China, which strives to adopt the most advanced technologies in the world. Following this ship, there should be a contract to build three similar vessels at Russia's shipyards. There is nothing to be ashamed of here - United States bought the French technology for bunker-busting bombs. The only question that needs to be asked here is: why there was no tender for this purchase? Such ships are also built in Spain and Holland."

The carrier ship is not the only major purchase of foreign defense technology by Russia - recently, the Defense Ministry announced that it was buying eight sets of French Future Combat Systems for the individual soldier: body armor, computers, navigation and control equipment. This decision effectively ends the development of analogous Russian system called "Barmitsa." According to Puhov, "this means that Russia's Defense Ministry does not care about the costs so long as it can show progress in the military modernization drive. Purchasing "Mistral" carrier effectively closes all other Russian naval shipbuilding programs."