USA too naive to believe that its sanctions hurt Russia’s arms export

USA’s single-handed sanctions against Russia’s defense export giant, Rosoboronexport, is an attempt of unfair competition, although the sanctions will not hurt the activity of the Russian enterprise, President Dmitry Medvedev believes.

Photo: USA too naive to believe that its sanctions hurt Russia’s arms export

“I have already said before that we believe that such sanctions are visionless,” Medvedev said at a session of the defense cooperation committee Tuesday. “This is unfair competition, it is simply an attempt to cut off suppliers. However, this decision is practically non-sensitive for us, and those, who made the decision, must take this into their consideration,” Medvedev said. The president added that Russia’s backlogs of defense export orders enlarged considerably and was currently evaluated at over $30 billion, Interfax reports.

Medvedev reminded that Russia conducted defense cooperation with 81 countries of the world. Russia has been strengthening cooperation with many of its partners lately, for example, a framework agreement in the field of defense cooperation has been recently signed with Saudi Arabia.

Russia ’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said earlier that the USA’s single-handed sanctions against Rosoboronexport for its cooperation with Iran were absolutely unacceptable.

Dmitry Medvedev also said that Russia would pay serious attention to other countries’ efforts aimed to provide military support to the incumbent administration of Georgia.

“We know that several countries were supplying weapons to Georgia, pushing Saakashvili’s regime towards aggression. We are also aware of the fact that those countries plan to supply even more weapons to the regime,” Medvedev said Tuesday.

“Unfortunately, several of our close partners participated in the affair. We won’t forget it and we will obviously take it into our consideration in our practical policies. I would like everyone to know it,” the Russian leader said.

“We will continue our work to deliver weapons and military hardware to our partners with the only purpose of enhancing their defensive ability,” Medvedev said. He also continued with saying that many members of the international community do not stick to such an approach, which was proved during the armed conflict in the Caucasus in August of this year.

Russia ’s chief military attorney, Sergei Fridinsky, stated in September that the weapons and military hardware, which Georgia used in its aggression against South Ossetia, had been delivered from 14 different countries. He added that Georgia received most of its weapons from the United States and Ukraine.

Ukraine does not deny the sales of its weapons to Georgia, although Ukrainian officials emphasize that arms sales to Georgia were never prohibited. Spokespeople for the Ukrainian administration said that the weapons had been delivered to Georgia on a legal basis and prior to the start of the military conflict in S. Ossetia. Furthermore, Ukraine intends to continue its arms export to Georgia in accordance with previously concluded contracts.

Russia in its turn intends to develop military cooperation with members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to create the joint missile defense system.