(Newswire.net — November 9, 2014) — Trade embargos towards Russian economy have backfired in almost all EU countries. Everyone is loosing the money. France now faces paying billions in penalties for failing to deliver Mistral warships to Russians as they ordered.
Eight US lawmakers forwarded a letter Friday to NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, urging the Alliance to purchase the Mistral vessels.
“Sensitive to the financial burden that France may incur should it rightly refuse to transfer these warships to Russia, we renew our call that NATO purchase or lease the warships as a common naval asset,” the letter said as quoted by The Hill website.
NATO, however, does not have the money to do so, a military source told TASS.
“NATO’s budget is too small to not only purchase Russia-ordered Mistral helicopter carriers, but to even compensate France half of the penalties in accordance with the contract,” a military source in Brussels, Belgium told the Russian news agency TASS.
Total NATO’s military and civilian budget for 2014 amounts $ 1.6 billion, and France would have to pay up to $3 billion penalty, for non-delivery of the two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia, the source explained.
Even if the NATO could raise funds, it simply doesn’t have a structure that could receive such ships which are tailored according the Russian standards. The idea of buying Mistral vessels is “absurd from a military point of view,” said NATO source adding that “there would be no use in the helicopter carriers even if the money to purchase them is found.”
The source has called the proposal by the US senators “a purely political project” because the organization is physically unable to participate. Ironically, it’s not France, but Russia, which will get the money even if some Alliance members allocate the funds, he said.
The Russians are more interested in money than in Mistral and “does not look too concerned” about the problem with delivery, said the source.
“The fact that this logic isn’t obvious to the US congressmen may only cause disappointment among allies and laughter among the Russians,” he concluded.
NATO headquarters confirmed that it received letter, but provided no official comments on the possibility of the purchase of the ships.