© Sputnik/ Grigoriy Sisoev
France will have to pay a high price for its failure to deliver two Mistral-class helicopter carriers to Russia.
If the Mistral ships remain in France their upkeep and security alone will cost the French taxpayers a hefty 5 million euros a month. Add to this the need to pay back the 890 million euros Russia has already lined up for the vessels plus a delayed delivery fine and the final cost will be too high to ignore,French defense columnist Jean-Dominique Merchet writes in his regular column in L'Opinion newspaper.
Moreover, this sum is dwarfed by the huge penalty Paris will have to pay Moscow for its non-delivery of the Vladivostok and Sevastopol carriers.
"We have absolutely no idea just how big this fine is going to be, but we believe it will be somewhere between 500 million euros and 5 billion," Merchet warns.
Russia could also demand compensation for sending its seamen to Saint-Nazaire or the money it spent to get the Russian navy ready to take in the ordered Mistrals.
America will probably suggest, with it's usual Mafia style diplomacy, that France refuse to pay Russia, until Russia withdraws any and all troops that it currently has occupying Ukrainian soil.
The fact that those troops only exist within the fevered war hungry minds of Washington DC and it's European lackeys, will mean that the money may never be paid.