Ukrainian expert: Russia buys Mistral to split NATO

16.03.2010
Russia buys vulnerable and unsuitable for its navy French helicopter carrier Mistral pursuing numerous objectives; one of them is to provoke discord within NATO.

That was said in article published in Ukrainian Zerkalo Nedeli [Mirror of the Week] written by Sergei Zgurets, expert of Research Center for Conversion, Army and Disarmament.

"To avoid turning into heap of junk, Russian Navy needs 3-4 new warships per year including those of main classes like cruisers, destroyers, frigates and corvettes. But since 2000 only four new ships have been commissioned. The rest vessels were built in Soviet era and their service lives are almost expired. The deadline is 2015. Lifetime of almost all missile boats and small ASW ships will be expired in 2-3 years. After decommission of those ships Russia will have no ships of waterway area defense, i.e. even littoral zone will be unprotected. And that will ruin military capabilities of Baltic and Black Sea fleets. In such situation Russian leaders have nothing to do but to forget of sanguine hopes voiced by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. Recall that Medvedev charged defense ministry to develop construction program of aircraft carriers to start building them in the nearest years... Alas, carrier results are obviously not in view either by 2013 or later. On one side, Russia has never built flattops as appropriate shipyards were only in Ukrainian city of Nikolayev. On the other side, each of those ships would cost Russia at least $7 bln, although with pretty obscure prospects to be commissioned. Example, higher priority construction of flagship of Russian submarine fleet SSBN Yury Dolgoruky at Sevmash shipyard has been extended over 13 years now even with stable financing. Note, in 80's Sevmash was capable to construct six submarines per year", writes Ukrainian expert describing the situation in neighboring Russia.

As for Mr. Zgurets, imported warships could be a patch to cover tears in Russian Navy. However, Mistral is not designed to fit with Russian arms and weaponed weakly, points out the expert.

"Without adaptation Mistral can't carry Russian helicopters and air-cushion vessels. Actually, Mistral's capacity is low – up to ten tanks; hangarage is only ten helicopters. Moreover, the carrier has deep draft and can't let out amphibious vehicles... Landing helicopter carrier Mistral has length of 200 meters [like two football grounds], beam of 32 meters and displacement of 21,000 tons. Substantially, that is a huge and quite slow ferry. The ship is built on the basis of civil vessel... She is pretty vulnerable as for torpedo and antiship missile attacks. The carrier has no defensive armament. All above-mentioned means that without effective coverage Mistral is rather a marines' common grave than a tool of warfare", says Mr. Zgurets.

Accordingly, Mistral deal is a part of much greater game playing by Russia. The target could be to disharmonize NATO members; as is known, some allies have protested against sale of landing ships to Moscow.

"Much better than potential combat mission, Mistral has successfully played a role of the Trojan horse for NATO and Europe. In fact, paying $1.4 bln "for the ship" Russia buys France's loyalty in regard to North and South streams. Moscow is extremely interested in realization of those projects. By the way, South Stream competes with alternative project Nabucco, Caspian gas deliveries to Europe...

Wickedness of the situation lies in the fact that if Mistral is bought, importing single-sourced gas Europe itself would pay back to Russia. Moreover, it would have to pay much more. So, even if all Mistrals get rusty and decay in Russian docks, the deal would nonetheless be an extremely profitable and strategic for Russia. Because nothing but natural gas is Moscow's principal weapon against Europe", concluded Mr. Zgurets.

Source: New Region, photo: Mistral (naval-technology.com)