Three officers from Russia
London proposes to reduce military cooperation with Russia. Earlier, a similar threat was voiced by Paris, but immediately made a reservation that the Mistral contract remains in force until October at least. Berlin has abstained from a spectacular gesture. Russian experts remind that military cooperation with NATO was rather decorative.
On the issue of the conflict in Ukraine, Russia "acts more like an adversary than as a partner" of NATO, said Supreme Commander-in-Chief of NATO in Europe, American General Philippe Breedlove, speaking at an expert Brussels forum on Sunday.
And British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for excluding Russia from some international organizations, RIA reported on Sunday.News". Haig said that after the Crimea was annexed to the Russian Federation, Great Britain and its allies should build a “new partnership” with Moscow. "It should include the exclusion of Russia from some international organizations, the imposition of long-term restrictions on military cooperation and arms sales and limiting influence (RF) in the rest of Europe," the British minister wrote.
“The joint naval exercises of the USA, France and Russia were canceled, calls to Russian ports of British ships, including St. Petersburg, were canceled, contacts of the military and officials in the Ministry of Defense were suspended,” said Haig earlier. He said that the UK is studying military contracts with Russia and licenses for the supply of arms to it, and also promised technological assistance to Ukraine.
A day earlier, the French authorities made a similar statement. France has canceled the upcoming joint military exercises with Russia and will consider the possible cancellation of the delivery of Mistral warships to Russia. France has suspended most of its military-technical cooperation with Russia, but is going to fulfill its international obligations, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday while visiting Estonia.
In particular, he said, the previously planned joint exercises will be canceled, as well as mutual visits of the two countries' military, as the newspaper VIEW has written. At the same time, France expects to maintain contacts with Russia related to the need to fulfill international obligations.
Le Drian did not talk about the fate of contracts for the supply of helicopter carriers "Mistral". A day earlier, he said that the question of a possible suspension would be considered "not earlier than October" of the current year. “The elements of the corps are now being created by Russia, and this procedure as a whole is not easy,” the minister reminded. “The delivery of the first ship is due in October, so the question of the possible suspension of the Mistral contract will be adopted in October.”
"It was reduced to the exchange of delegations"
Military-technical cooperation (MTC), about which there is so much talk, was not really so significant, experts remind. So, the former head of the press service of the Ministry of Defense, Vyacheslav Sedov, notes that Moscow didn’t have any military-technical cooperation programs with Washington, "there were only separate agreements with several European countries, but they were insignificant."
“Military cooperation basically consisted of an exchange of delegations on various aspects of the army’s activities and fleet, very rare joint exercises of a local nature, sending officers to study for short-term courses, the participation of specialized specialists in seminars, and other similar forums related to ensuring European and global security. Therefore, in fact, our overseas partners do not have levers of pressure on Russia through the military department, and they are well aware of this, ”Sedov told VZGLYAD newspaper.
In turn, the Vice-President of the PIR Center, the former head of the international contractual administration is the deputy head of the main department of international military cooperation of the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant-General Yevgeny Buzhinsky is convinced that the MTC is mutually beneficial.
“The US does not help us in a military line. We in 1999 year, due to the Balkan events, stopped military cooperation with NATO, then it angered many of its members, after some time, cooperation was resumed. So it was after August 2008, then the Americans and NATO themselves ceased cooperation, but a year passed, and we again began to work together. This cooperation is more profitable for them than for us, until they withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, ”he stressed.
Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, believes that winding up the partnership will in no way harm Russia: “This cooperation was more decorative. From a practical point of view, this did not give us anything. ”
Afghanistan, anti-terror and old ammunition
The Russians held annual joint exercises with the Americans since 1993. In the 1999 year, due to the attack on Yugoslavia, Moscow broke off relations with NATO and the United States. They later resumed, as it was after the 11 attacks of September 2001, then interrupted again.
Moscow’s cooperation with NATO as a whole has long been narrow. For example, on December 4, the Russia-NATO Council adopted the NRC Work Program for 2014. As reported on the Council’s website, cooperation on Afghanistan was outlined through the well-established Trust Fund for the maintenance of helicopters of the NRC supporting the Afghan Air Force. drug trafficking.
It was planned to continue the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Terrorist Threat in the Euro-Atlantic Region, as well as to implement the Cooperation Initiative on Detection and Response to Threats Associated with the Hijacking of Aircraft In addition, work continued on the development of the STANDEKS Remote Detection Program for Explosives. This advanced technology will help to increase the ability to prevent terrorist attacks over time.
The Russia-NATO Council also decided to create a Trust Fund for the disposal of surplus ammunition. Designed for 5 years, the project was mapped out for the Kaliningrad region, where the Defense Ministry was planning, using NATO technology, to secure the safe destruction of the ammunition accumulated from the war. As suggested by military expert Dmitry Litovkin, the project will now be frozen until the parties sit down again at the negotiating table. The same fate is likely to befall those transit agreements of 2012 of the year, providing for the use of the airfield in Ulyanovsk.
Earlier this week, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced that the alliance is reviewing cooperation with Russia. Moscow, for example, will not be allowed to participate together with the forces of the alliance in the protection of the ship, on board of which the Syrian chemical weapons will be destroyed, threatened Rasmussen. True, he did not specify on what grounds he puts forward such threats if the operation to export Syrian chemical weapons is carried out by decision of the UN, and not NATO.
Mistrali and Russia
Concerning stories with the French helicopter carriers, experts have been skeptical of this initiative of Anatoly Serdyukov for the last six years. “The very idea of buying“ Mistral ”from France from the very beginning was a bad idea, and therefore it is possible that breaking a contract is much more beneficial for Russia,” Yevgeny Buzhinsky told the newspaper.
The opinion of the general is shared by Vyacheslav Sedov: “As for the notorious Mistrals, even at the time when this“ bright ”idea was born, sober-minded experts warned that their order was just a betrayal of Russia's national interests. Really, at the time when we are building super-modern nuclear submarines that have no analogues in the world, we suddenly needed to turn to France for help ?! ”.
However, the source of the newspaper in the apparatus of the Russian military department said that at one time, having ordered two helicopter carriers at shipyards in Saint-Nazaire, Moscow went to meet then-President Nicolas Sarkozy. “The company was on the verge of bankruptcy at that time, and they were going to close it. So we helped Sarkozy so that he could save the enterprise. This gave him great trump cards before the election, ”explained the source.
Yevgeny Buzhinsky emphasizes that the failure of an order can be costly for the French themselves: “France itself will suffer, not Russia. They do not buy from us, and we from them. They will refuse to do the work, they will return the money, and the sanctions will pay 700 billion euros, ”he explained. Buzhinsky was supported by Igor Korotchenko. “If there is a rupture of contracts, then we will return the money and pay a penalty. The refusal of the French to us will only be on hand, we will build our big landing ships, ”he told the newspaper VIEW.
The fate of the landfill in Mulino
Berlin, unlike London and Paris, has not yet announced the suspension of military cooperation with Russia. In practice, however, it gradually collapses. Berlin on Friday imposed a ban on the contract under which the Germans were going to equip the center of combat training of ground forces in Mulino near Nizhny Novgorod.
As Deutsche Welle recalls, a contract worth 120 million euros was signed in early 2011 by former Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and the head of the Rheinmetall concern Klaus Eberhardt. The center was planned to be put into operation in June this year. In a training complex equipped with the latest technology, 30 thousand fighters could be trained annually tank and motorized rifle troops.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Economy and Energy, Tobias Dunov, called the ban “an isolated case”, but added that “due to the current situation in Russia, no permits will be issued to export arms to this country”. However, in the past 10 years, Berlin has never been allowed to sell weapons to Russia made at German military factories.
Relations between Berlin and Moscow were not particularly intense in other areas of military cooperation. Periodically come to study officers of the Russian army. This year there were three of them. One of them has already completed language courses and has gone home, the second is still learning German, and the third is mastering the art of headquarters in Germany. They decided not to interrupt their studies.
If a break in the Mulino contract occurs, it will be urgently necessary to build this work by ourselves, Russian experts admit. “In Mulino several exercises of the company level were carried out, which, in principle, boiled down to shooting practice and sports competitions. In this case, it was the guests who had something to learn from us, they needed it more than us. And, by the way, at the tactical level, good partnerships of military professionals developed at the test site. Now, not only will we lose, but they themselves will simply lose a lot, ”said Sedov.
"We are not used to"
The United States, in turn, at the beginning of the week, within the first package of sanctions, banned its businessmen from cooperating with the Russian defense industry complex.
As for contracts for the supply of military equipment and equipment, then, according to experts, they are small and will not affect Russia, but there are exceptions. “The volume of weapons purchased in the US is 1%. Most of the equipment purchased in the West went to our equipment, which, in turn, was exported to third countries, Dmitry Litovkin told VZGLYAD newspaper. - For example, Su-30 MKI and MiG fighters, MiG - 29K, which India is currently buying, have the French system on them. So the French, it turns out, are not plotting to us, but on the Hindus and others. ”
In the event of a contract break, the expert is confident that the States will lose more than Russia: “Energomash supplied engines for American missiles. Americans, of course, claim that they have already stocked them, but if they intensively develop the space industry, they will still have to buy engines, ”Litovkin said. “We must remember that a company such as Boeing buys 787 Dreamliner 40% titanium products in Russia for modern aircraft.”
At the same time, the Russian military industrial complex purchases an ECB (electronic base component) in the USA. Moreover, according to Litovkin, the chips themselves in the United States are only being developed, and they are made in Southeast Asia. “The United States supplied the basic elements for the needs of Roscosmos. However, after a scandal with the NSA agent Snowden appeared last year, the State Department for the first time banned the supply of parts for Roscosmos. Therefore, it was decided to look for new partners in Europe and China, ”the expert explained.
According to Litovkin, a break in relations with the defense industry of Ukraine may have a much harder effect on Russia. And this is not connected with the aircraft "Ruslan", "they still have not made a decision to release them or not," but with the supply of engines for helicopters and warranty service for intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“Motor Sich Plant in Zaporozhye manufactures the entire range of engines of all our helicopters, including the most modern Mi-28. This is all significant, because our own Klimov plant in St. Petersburg is not yet ready for such volumes. We will have to use forced methods to establish this production, ”Litovkin warned.
The Russian defense ministry responded promptly to the threats of the West. Deputy Minister Yury Borisov, at the beginning of the week, said that sanctions against the Russian defense industry could in no way prevent the rearmament of the Armed Forces.
“The Ministry of Defense conducts a detailed analysis of all risks associated with possible sanctions and non-deliveries of a number of products by enterprises of Ukraine. I believe that we will eliminate situations of disruption of the state defense order, so let them not hope, ”said Borisov. According to him, the industry will not be easier, but “we are no stranger to.” “I think the country gained much more after the recent events than it lost, even in view of the possible sanctions with which we are frightened,” concluded Borisov.
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