Moscow surprised over state department sanctions against Tula design bureau

The sanctions imposed by the US Department of State against the instrument-making design bureau in the city of Tula "can evoke nothing but bewilderment," Anatoly Baranov, press secretary of Deputy Prime Minster Boris Alyoshin, said on Saturday.

The State Department imposed the sanctions "in connection with deliveries military equipment deliveries to Iran," allegedly made by this facility, he said.

Baranov denied the reports of some media that Boris Alyoshin during his stay in Tula on September 18 and 19 unexpectedly cancelled a visit to the instrument-making design bureau after a report about the US sanctions.

"In the first place, the visit to the design bureau had not been planned and, second, Alyoshin did pay a visit to the bureau after the sanctions against it were reported," the press secretary pointed out. He said Alyoshin examined the military equipment produced by that facility.

The Tula Design Bureau is "one of the best Russian facilities producing conventional arms," Baranov said.

It is not for the first time, he recalled, that the US State Department has imposed sanctions against it. "First it was charged with arms deliveries to Iran, which has not been proved," Baranov noted.

The Kornet anti-tank guided missile systems produced at the Tula Design Bureau "have excellent characteristics, which corresponding arms manufactured in the NATO countries do not have," a source in the Russian military-industrial complex told RIA Novosti. "Perhaps this annoys the lobbyists of the US military-industrial complex," the source suggested.