MOSCOW, November 1 (RIA Novosti) – Herve Guillou, CEO of a French arms industry company DCNS, dismissed Yves Destefanis, a project director responsible for delivering the Mistral helicopter carrier to Russia, French newspaper Les Echos reported on Friday.
Destefanis was relieved from his duties on Thursday night, following French Finance Minister Michel Sapin’s announcement that conditions for the handover of the first Mistral carrier to Russia had not been met. CEO of DCNS made an official statement regarding Destefanis’ dismissal on Friday, the French source said.
The failure to meet conditions of the handout to Russia was not cited as an official reason of the dismissal; however, according to the company’s statement, Destefanis has “caused damaging consequences” to the company, Les Echos said.
Russian Deputy Minister Dmitry Rogozin stated that Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport had already been invited to France to attend the official handover ceremony of the first Mistral carrier on November 14.
Russia and France signed the €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) deal for the two Mistral-class ships in June 2011. Since then, the deal has been in jeopardy after the West started implementing economic sanctions against Russia over the Ukrainian crisis.
