Hi Val,
I was interested to see the post about France's sale of the Mistral vessels to Egypt. I'm not sure that Putin will be chastised. Rather it may happen to fit into his current strategy to pick up the initiative in the Middle East after the USA and the UK have rather sat on their hands over the past three years. There is a lot of Russian equipment on the ships which will need Russian technicians to operate and it is rumoured that Russia will supply helicopters to Egypt to deploy from the ships. The Mistral ships may well become part of Putin's strategy in the area. It is also not clear where the finance for the purchase comes from. It could well be be Saudi Arabia. Could we envisage a Sunni egyptian-saudi alliance with Russian backing eventually confronting Iran ? France needs to take care !
Huwrop
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