No Mistrals For Putin

Photo taken in May 2014 of the first "Ivan Gren" class boat built in Russia's Yantar Shipbuilding plant. Ten years after its construction started, it is still not finished. Russia declared that it has begun work on a helicopter carrier similar to a Mistral and provided a few interesting details .  Little analysis: - The capacity of this helicopter carrier is of .. one helicopter. - Russia is not able to build an equivalent of the Mistral before 2050 - The so called helicopter carrier "similar to Mistral" is in fact the sistership of the "Ivan Gren" which is 7 years overdue and still not finished.

Submitted by  admin  on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 02:08 Lately, rumours about the Mistral spread as the speed of light without considering facts and verified numbers. Let's get a few things straight: 1) France offers France offers to refund € 784,6 million while Russia wants € 1,163 Bln to terminate the contract. 2) Price of maintenance of the Mistral is not € 5 millions per month but € 0,4 million/month. Tags:  Mistral ,  Russia ,  No Mistrals for Putin ,  cancel , Dimitri Halby

Today's order of 36 Rafale aircraft to France from India, proved once more the fails of russian propaganda.  A few month ago, in order to convince french people and the world that France had all interests in delivering the Mistral to Russia, russian media propaganda spent a lot of energy in spreading fear and lies in case of non delivery. Comparison between russian lies and nowadays reality: Russian propaganda: 1)  France would not be seen as reliable  -> India would cancel its order of Rafale aircrafts (126 aircrafts for a record deal of 24 billion euros). Even better, Sputnik news announced less than one month ago that India officially declared that the Rafale deal was cancelled because of the Mistral deal. 2) STX (builder of the war ships) would lose a huge amount of money. 3) STX would lose contracts. 4) The result would be huge unemployment for STX and St Nazaire shipyards., 2500 jobs at stake. Vs reality: 1) Indian prime Minister Narendra Modi...

Russian vessel Smolnyi leaving St Nazaire to return to Russia - Photo Bernard Grua SAINT-NAZAIRE, France, Dec 18 (NMFP) - A ship carrying the Russian sailors who have been training for months on a French-built Mistral helicopter carrier left the French port of Saint-Nazaire on Thursday, in a departure that seems to exclude the delivery of the Mistral to Russia. A few activists including Bernard Grua saw their ship, the Smolny, leave the Atlantic Ocean port and head out to sea. French media reported this week how many of the 400 sailors and 150 crew members had been stocking up with parcels of purchases at local retailers. The sailors arrived in late June at the shipyard to begin training on a first carrier, named Vladivostock, which France was due to deliver to Russia by the last quarter of 2014. Bon vent! as we say in French (used to express relieve when somebody you don't want to see leaves finally) A few pictures taken by Bernard Grua : Russian vessel S...

Ouest France  posted pictures of the Russian  sailors going back to the Smolnyi with all their belongings. The departure would be for tomorrow Thursday 18th of December around 2pm French time, during the high tide. The sailors are doing a last shopping spree before final departure. The Mistral "Vladivostok", parked for now at the exit of the Louis Joubert dock should move and be located where the Smolnyi is since its arrival on the 6th of June. The information is classified and the French Defence Ministry turns down vehemently any requests to comment on it. According to the French newspaper "Ouest France" , the 400 russian sailors that have been training on the Mistral for the last six month in St Nazaire will leave France before the end of the year. This is a definitive departure and the sailors should be able to spend Christmas with their family. Christmas is celebrated on the 7th of January in Russia according to the Christian Orthodox tradition. They wi...

In another step towards the non delivery of the Mistral, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian declared today that there is a possiblity that France will never go throught with the delivery of the Mistral-class ships.

Good news, the russian identification MMSI (273549920) for the Mistral Vladivostok has completely been disabled and doesn't officially exist anymore.  The page where we were  able to see it until today  now returns a 404 error while a  research with the vessel name "Vladivostok"  on the website marinetraffic returns only one result,  the French one! Following last Friday's act of piracy when the russian crew replaced the French MMSI by a russian one while  trying to move all their belongings to the Mistral to take officially possession of it , the Vladivostok  was considered without nationality  as she was under flags of two different countries. According to the article 92 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: Ships shall sail under the flag of one State only  [...] A ship which sails under the flags of two or more States  [...]  may be assimilated to a ship without nationality Although Romain Nada...

On the 14th of November, the  Mistral Vladivostok appeared as russian on international tracking systems . Following that, the  russian crew was forbidden on board . What really happened? Information is finally  leaking slowly  and allow us to better understand. The incident occurred Monday when the 400 Russian sailors in training since the beginning of the summer in Saint-Nazaire, on the Vladivostok definitely wanted to move on the war ship. The official date of delivery of the Mistral to Russia had been set for November 14, at least until the French government canceled the ceremony of "keys" organized by the manufacturer DCNS. The sailors did as if nothing had changed. Their training was completed for several days, the last sea manoeuvres too. They wanted to transfer their personal belongings from the school boat "Smolny", where they spent every night, to the Vladivostok which is now ready to go to sea. But they were stopped. And if they have been allowed to go...

Suite au  changement inattendu de MMSI (numéro d'immatriculation international maritime) du Mistral Vladivostok survenu le vendredi 14 Novembre , faisant apparaître le navire sous pavillon russe, plusieurs questions se posent: Qui a décidé ce changement et pourquoi? Il est relativement peu clair à l'instant où nous écrivons ces lignes du "qui" a décidé ce changement. DCNS évoque de façon peu convaincante un test demandé par le bureau VERITAS. Sachant que moins d'une heure après que nous ayons publié l'article avertissant de ce changement de MMSI, la balise a cessé d’émettre avec le MMSI russe et est revenue sous MMSI français le jour d’après, tout porte à croire qu'un membre de l'équipage russe se soit chargé de la manœuvre et ait été rabroué suite à notre publication et les interrogations auprès de DCNS qui s'en sont ensuivies. Techniquement parlant, le  numéro MMSI programmé sur une balise ne peut être reprogrammé  sans obtenir un déb...

According to the French newspaper  "Ouest France" , russian military sailors are forbidden to board on the Mistral Vladivostok since this morning. This might be the consequence of the last mistake made where the  boat appeared in the international tracking system as being under russian flag  last Friday. Following this, Romain Nadal, spokesperson of the French Ministry of Foreign affairs, had to clarify this morning and  officially state that the war ship is back under French flag. The Mistral deal issue has not been discussed by Francois Hollande and Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit. The ship is technically ready to be delivered. Russia threatened one day before the G20 of financial consequences if the war ship is not delivered within two weeks while Hollande declared that no compensation could be sought at the moment as everything is going according to the contract signed between DCNS and Rosoboronexport. Is the French government getting scared of having t...

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin gives an exclusive interview to Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Brussels, on November 17, 2014 | © AFP | Emmanuel Dunand France is "creative enough" to find a way to avoid delivering Mistral ships to Russia, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin told the AFP. "The opposition from Kiev to the delivery of the two vessels to Russia is crystal clear," said Klimkin in an interview with AFP. "Now it is time to have a clear message to Moscow that further destabilisation in Ukraine will trigger further steps by the EU," Klimkin said as he visited Brussels for talks with new EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini. "Mistral ships should not be delivered to Russia" insists Ukrainian diplomat. Tweet This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License . Source: http://www.gandul.info/international/ucraina-cere-frantei-sa-nu-livreze-rusiei-navele-de-ra...

Romain Nadal Following the article we published last Friday when we spotted that the Mistral Vladivostok  could be seen in the international system of registration and identification of vessels under russian flag , Romain Nadal, spokesperson of the French Ministry of Foreign affairs, officially stated that the war ship is back under French flag.

The  unexpected change of the MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) of the Mistral Vladivostok last friday November the 14th , showing this one as russian on online tracking systems, raises a few questions: Who decided this change and why? Who decided to change the MMSI is quite unclear at the moment where we are writing this article. DCNS explains it not very convincingly by a test requested by VERITAS. Less than one hour after we published an article warning of the MMSI change, the beacon stopped sending signals with the russian MMSI and started sending with the french MMSI the day after. Everything is leading us to think that a russian crew member proceeded with this manipulation and was rebuffed following our publication and the questions asked consequently to DCNS. Technically speaking, the  MMSI number programmed on the beacon cannot be modified  without prior unblocking provided by the manufacturer, similar to unblocking a cellular phone. This is due to...

Stern of Mistral Vladivostok (20% of the hull) or Sevastopol (40% of the hull) being built in Russia There has been a few articles lately in Russian newspapers about  Russian shipyards being able to buy the Mistral, would France decide not to deliver the war ships.

37 Members of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, representing four groups and 14 Member States, have sent in a common letter to Francois Hollande and Herman Van Rompuy (president of the European Council) a proposition for the E.U to buy the Mistral. . We managed to get a copy of the answers of Mr Hollande and Mr Van Rompuy to this proposition. Here are the main points of each of them: ANSWERS FROM Mr HOLLANDE AND Mr VAN ROMPUY Francois Hollande:  « …je laisse au Président Van Rompuy…le soin de vous apporter les (points)…qui relèvent de la compétence de l'Union européenne. Il me semble en revanche nécessaire de vous faire part de mon approche quand à la livraison du premier bâtiment. … Ces conditions sont claires, un cessez-le-feu mis en œuvre et l’engagement d’un processus de règlement politique crédible… La décision sera donc fondée sur l’analyse de la situation sur le terrain et sur la mise en œuvre des conditions que j’aie précisée… Ave...