Updated on 02:10 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, September 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is capable of building its own Mistral helicopter carriers similar to the ones France is currently constructing, Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said Monday in an interview on Rossiya-24 television.
"If the task comes along to build analogous ships, then we’ll do that since this was [an international] cooperation: the components and maneuvering system were Russian," Manturov said.
The president of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), Aleksei Rakhmanov, said earlier the company would suffer no serious damage if the Mistral contracts were broken.
French President Francois Hollande said Saturday he would make a final decision on the delivery of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers at the end of October based on the situation in eastern Ukraine.
The French president said the conditions for supplies of the warships were a real ceasefire in Ukraine and the signing of an agreement on the political settlement of the crisis. Hollande stressed that the EU sanctions would not hamper the country's obligations to Russia.
Recently, France has come under strong pressure from the United States and its European partners to suspend the deal.
Russia and France signed a $1.6 billion deal for two Mistral-class ships in June 2011. The first carrier, the Vladivostok, was expected in Russia by the end of 2014. The second ship, the Sevastopol, was supposed to arrive in 2015.
However, the completion of the deal has been at risk since Western countries imposed sanctions against Russia over its alleged role in the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly stressed that it is not involved in the Ukrainian conflict, referring to the language of sanctions "counterproductive," and said that such measures "threaten international peace and stability."
Activists and union members held demonstrations at the Saint-Nazaire shipyard on Sunday, calling for the first delivery of the carriers to Russia.
