allies and that sales might one day expand to China.
The Mistral, the second largest ship in the French navy, is a force projection vessel that can transport up to 16 helicopters, four landing craft, 13 battle tanks, and hundreds of combat troops, and can field a 69-bed hospital.
Russia will pay $1.4 billion for the first two vessels, and France’s state-owned naval defense company DCNS said it will deliver the first ship to Russia in 2014, CRS said.
German defense giant Rheinmetall signed a deal with Russia’s Defense Ministry last November to build a $131 million army training center in Russia’s Volga region which Rh…
Read the rest of this entry »