France moves forward with ship sales to Russia

France is moving ahead with the sale of two Mistral warships to Russia despite pressure from American lawmakers to cancel the contract, the nation’s foreign minister said Monday.

“We have a rule. When there is a contract it will be implemented,” Minister Laurent Fabius told CNN.

{mosads}The first French ship is slated to be delivered to Russia in October, with the second one coming in 2015. The ships will join Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Sebastopol on the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in March.

“It has been signed in 2011. … It is implemented, it is paid more than half,” Fabius said later Tuesday during an event at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

U.S. lawmakers have called upon France to halt the $1.65 billion sale of the Mistrals, which are advanced helicopter assault ships, in retaliation for Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Fabius was meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, which lawmakers said was an opportunity to apply more pressure.

“Sec. @JohnKerry is mtg w/ French F.M. @LaurentFabius tmrw. He must demand France suspend sale of warships to Russia,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) tweeted Monday.

Kirk and three other lawmakers wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to oppose the sale.

“Mr. President, Members of the NATO Alliance cannot continue to arm Russia — let alone arm her with high-tech military equipment that will only abet its efforts to undermine Eastern European governments that aspire to be modern, European democracies,” said the May 9 letter from Kirk and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) and Bill Keating (D-Mass.).

A statement from Kirk’s office noted that as part of the contract, roughly 400 Russian troops would travel to France to receive training in June.

“I’m not here to bash the French, but I think this is a time when the French could stop that sale from happening and send a very strong message to the Russians,” Kinzinger said at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday.

Fabius said Monday that he is not entirely against canceling the deal, but said that if there are tougher sanctions, it has to be on more areas than just defense.

“The decision will be taken next October, but if we make new sanctions it has to apply to the defense, financial and energy [sectors], not only for defense,” he said on CNN.

Fabius said it was harder for Western Europe to impose tough sanctions on Russia given its reliance on energy exports from the country.

“It’s not easy,” Fabius said at Brookings. “It’s a sacrifice. … The idea is to sanction the Russians, not the Europeans.”

— This story was updated at 3:18 p.m.