PARIS: France said it is weighing the option of giving Moscow a refund for a €1.2 billion ($1.29 billion) contract to supply the Russian navy with two warships, whose delivery has been put on hold amid the conflict in Ukraine.
French President François Hollande said he would discuss the contract with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Armenia, where world leaders will gather to mark the 100th anniversary of the killing and forced deportation of more than 1.5 million ethnic Armenians.
Mr. Hollande suspended the delivery of two Mistral class warships to Russia last fall after the U.S. and other Western allies warned that the vessels would strengthen Russia’s military at a time of increasing tensions over the Kremlin’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Since then, Mr. Hollande has kept the Kremlin in limbo, neither fulfilling the contract or canceling it.
We’re perfectly clear with President Putin. Among the different hypotheses, you’d have reimbursement or payment,” Mr. Hollande said after meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday.
The Mistrals have become a lightning rod in the West’s standoff with Russia over its intervention in Ukraine. Last week, Mr. Putin said he expected France to reimburse Russia if it didn’t follow through with the deliveries.
The contract stems from efforts by Mr. Hollande’s predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, to repair diplomatic ties with the Kremlin after Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year, however, upended the contract just as shipbuilders along France’s Atlantic coast were nearing completion of the massive vessels. Moscow had already paid a large portion of the contract. The two ships would round out Russia’s naval arsenal by giving it the ability to launch tank, helicopter and missile assaults on coastlines—a capability its navy lacked during the Georgia conflict.
Under pressure from allies to call off the sale, Mr. Hollande suspended the delivery of the first Mistral in September, just weeks before its scheduled delivery.
Mr. Hollande has taken a leading role, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in pressing Ukraine and Russia to fully implement a cease-fire accord that France and Germany helped to broker in the Belarusian capital of Minsk earlier this year.
Flanked by Mr. Poroshenko on Wednesday, Mr. Hollande told reporters that pro-Russia separatists hadn’t yet implemented key conditions in the Minsk cease-fire accord, including the withdrawal of heavy arms from the front lines of the conflict. “For the moment, I’d say the delivery of the Mistrals, in the context we all know, isn’t possible,” he said.
