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WARSHIP

France not ready to sell warships to Russia

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday the conditions were "still not right" to go ahead with the sale of two Mistral warships to Russia despite Moscow having backed a new Ukraine peace plan.

Published: 13 February 2015 08:23 CET
France not ready to sell warships to Russia
French president François Hollande, Germany's Angela Merkel and Russia's Vladimir Putin meet in Moscow. Photo: AFP

Hollande suspended the €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) sale last year as the Ukraine crisis deepened, fearing it would boost Russia's military capabilities and put Paris in hot water with its allies.

Fresh from negotiating a new Ukraine ceasefire in the Belarus capital Minsk, Hollande said that if the accord was implemented in full, then the situation could change.

"I hope that will be the case, one day," the president told reporters after a European Union summit dominated by discussion of the latest Ukraine peace plan.

"It is clear that if everything falls into place, then measures will be taken at the European level to ease sanctions" imposed against Russia over its intervention in Ukraine, he said.

"France would be part of such a process but for the moment we are not there yet," Hollande added.

France delayed delivery of the first vessel due in November and then postponed it "until further notice."

Moscow promptly warned it would demand costly compensation if the sale was cancelled outright and the deal has been in limbo ever since.

In December, Russian sailors training to operate the Mistrals — each of which can carry 16 helicopters, four landing crafts, 13 tanks and over 400 soldiers — left France.

HISTORY

Nazi warship found off Norway coast after 80 years

A Nazi cruiser torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Norway in 1940 has been found by chance at a depth of 490 metres (535 yards) during a subsea power cable inspection, the finders said on Thursday.

Published: 10 September 2020 19:16 CEST
Nazi warship found off Norway coast after 80 years
An element of sunken German WWII warship cruiser "Karlsruhe" is seen in this undated photo obtained by Reuters September 7, 2020. Photo: Statnett/Reuters/Ritzau Scanpix

“Sometimes, we discover historical remains. But I've never found anything as exciting as this one,” Ole Petter Hobberstad, a chief engineer at Norway's power network operator Statnett, told AFP.

The German navy ship Karlsruhe, measuring 174 metres (571 feet), took part in the invasion of Norway during World War II.

After troops had disembarked on April 9, 1940 it was hit by Norwegian artillery then torpedoed by a British submarine. Badly damaged, it was finally ordered sunk by the German captain off the port of Kristiansand, at Norway's southern tip.

Three years ago, Statnett's sonars detected an unidentified wreck close to a high-tension cable between Norway and Denmark, but the company's engineers did not have time to investigate further, Statnett said.

But on June 30, after a storm in the area, a team was sent out to inspect the wreck with a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV).

About 15 metres from the cable, the ROV “showed a huge shipwreck that was torpedoed. But it was not until the cannons — and Nazi symbol — became visible on the screen that Ole Petter Hobberstad and the crew understood it was from the war,” Statnett said in a statement.

Norway's Maritime Museum later confirmed that there was no doubt: the wreck was indeed that of the Karlsruhe, which had never been found.

The ship is located 13 nautical miles off of Kristiansand. It lies upright on the seabed, a rare sight for warships with a high centre of gravity which normally list over, according to experts.

Built in Kiel in northern Germany, the cruiser was launched in 1927.

 

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