France looking for warship buyers after cancelling Mistral deal with Russia

For sale: two state-of-the-art warships. One finished, fitted out and in good sailing order. The second: half-finished. Never used. No owners (careful or otherwise).

France is looking for a buyer for two Mistral helicopter carriers after cancelling a controversial €1.2bn (£840m) deal with Russia.

The official announcement that the ships would not be delivered came on Wednesday after talks between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his French counterpart, François Hollande.

The sale of the warships was agreed by the former president Nicolas Sarkozy in 2011, despite opposition from Russia’s Baltic neighbours, the US, and other Nato allies.

But last November, Hollande announced he was delaying delivery of the ships, currently in a naval dockyard in France’s Saint-Nazaire port, until he was convinced a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine was being “entirely respected”.

Paris has reimbursed Moscow for all the costs of the cancelled deal, but insists the unspecified payment is less than the amount of the contract.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, told RTL radio: “Talks between president Putin and president François Hollande concluded yesterday [Wednesday]. There is no further dispute on the matter.”

He said France would pay back less than the cost of the contract as the two ships were not finished and claimed there were “many countries” willing to buy the “well constructed” Mistrals.

A statement from the Russian president’s press office said: “Moscow considers the Mistral issue completely resolved.”

Russia had threatened to sue France for breaching the contract, but declared on Wednesday that it was not seeking any penalties.

A team of Russian experts is to be sent to France in September to remove equipment installed on the first of the vessels, the Vladivostok.

The French government had come under increasing pressure not to deliver the two ships – the Vladivostok was due to be handed over last October and the second, the Sevastopol, this year – because of the Ukraine conflict.

The 180-metre, 22,000-tonne Mistral-class vessels are capable of carrying 16 helicopters, four landing craft, 60 armoured vehicles, 13 battle tanks and as many as to 700 soldiers for up to six months. It is also fitted out with a command and control centre and a military hospital. Russia had taken out an option on two more Mistral craft.

The rear half of the Vladivostok was built in a Russian shipyard at St Petersburg and towed to France for assembly.

A crew of about 400 Russian sailors took the Vladivostok out for sea trials last year but Moscow announced last month that they had been “disbanded”.

Neither Le Drian nor the Kremlin revealed the exact amount being paid to Russia for the cancelled deal. The French minister said the Assemblée Nationale would be informed.