Russia scraps Mistral deal with France

Russia has scrapped its controversial deal with France to buy two Mistral-class warships and is now designing its own alternative to the vessels, according to a source from Russia’s state military industrial complex.
The €1.2bn deal, agreed between Russia and France in 2011, was initially planned to see two Mistral-class helicopter carrier vessels delivered to the Russian military with the first one scheduled to arrive in November 2014.
However, since the dramatic collapse in relations between Russia and the West over the crisis in Ukraine, France has been faced with the diplomatic difficulty of maintaining the European party line against Russian aggression, without permanently cancelling the expensive order.