Posted on 04/07/2003 5:23:00 AM PDT by Norm640
The war in Iraq, which has seen stiff Iraqi resistance against US and British troops, has opened up market opportunities for Russian weapons used by Baghdad's forces, military experts said.
"We got a great advertising gift for our weapons in Iraq," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted as saying by the Interfax-AVN news agency on Friday.
The conflict will "generate a surge in interest in anti-aircraft defences and radio-electronic equipment," predicted Alexander Nozdrachev, head of the state-run Russian Agency for Conventional Weapons, quoted by Interfax-AVN.
Russian weapons sales last year totalled 4.5 billion dollars (4.1 billion euros), concentrated mainly on just two countries, China and India, although Russia has expanded sales to other regions.
"The war is useful for Russia. The Iraqi army is creating publicity for Russian weapons," respected business daily Vedomosti commented recently.
"Old launch-grenades, anti-tank missiles and mines, as well as primitive anti-aircraft equipment" from Soviet times "are inflicting losses on the coalition forces," Vedomosti said.
US M1 Abrams battle tanks, the most advanced tank in the world, have been damaged by hand-held rocket-propelled grenades, the RPG-7s, and Malyutka anti-tank missiles, which were designed in the 1960s, defence analyst Konstantin Makienko said.
"The scandal around the Kornet anti-tank missiles could boost interest in these arms," added Makienko, from the Centre for Strategy and Technologies Analysis.
The United States has accused Russian firms of selling Iraq anti-tank missiles and satellite jamming devices as well as night-vision goggles, in violation of the UN embargo. Moscow has firmly denied the allegations.
One of the firms concerned hit back at Washington, accusing the United States of "trying to find a scapegoat because their bombs are not falling as accurately as they want."
"The US weapons have been the cause of many mistakes in Iraq," hitting their own forces or civilians, Makienko pointed out.
With significant ground operations in the Iraq war, the "demand for Russian tanks and anti-tank missiles will rise," predicted Ivan Safranchuk from the Centre for Defence Information.
This will be particularly the case in other members of Washington's "axis of evil," Iran and North Korea (news - web sites), who fear the United States will target them after Iraq, Marat Kenzhetayev from the Russian Centre for Disarmament Problems told Vedomosti.
Most in demand will be TOR-M1 Short-range Air Defence Missile Systems (SA-15 under NATO (news - web sites) classification) and S-300 surface-to-air missiles (SA-10 Grumble), from Syria, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, according to Makienko.
According to some analysts, there has already been a surge in interest for Russian weapons at the IDEX-2003 arms exhibition, the biggest in the Middle East, which took place on the eve of the war in Abu Dhabi from March 16 to 20.
What hypocrites the Russians are. THey go ahead and brag about the immoral sale of their weapons to countries that are against anything deemed good in this world, savage, ugly countries, and then proclaim that they are a democracy and "friends" of the United States.
Why anyone is foolish enough to believe these guys are allies is beyond me. Russia and China are arming the entire third world, are making terrorism possible, and will, someday, joint strike the US--either militarily or politically.
The most laughable thing currently is their faux "concern" over "international stability" being threatened by so-called US unilateralism. What a joke--the Ruskies do everything they want, UN input or not. They, like China and their other friends, always violate human rights. They want Iraq's oil, just like the French. They don't care about other peoples--I mean, they don't even care about their own--how can we expect them to care about others?
Vladimir Putin is a KGB commie, just like the rest of the folks that make up the Duma. It is asinine to think they woke up one day and embraced democracy. It's just SSDD in Russia, but under a "new" brand of corrupt government--Russian Democracy.
Yup.
"LOSER ARMIES NEED LOSER WEAPONS!"
Iraqi TV boasts that they have Russian antitank 'technology,
which was used to kill Americans, and it was
given after OK by Putin himself..
========= Terrorist Enabling Russian =========
On the trail of WMD/cruiseMISSILE/GPS-jammers/-selling Putin,
Putin disingenuously denied that Russian firms sold military equipment to Iraq
because there were intermediaries and retired agents.
"Yas, here at Crazy Zoroff's ve haf everzink you vant! RPG's, Missile's and ze lastest in WMD's. Our prices are zo crazy...oooh! It gifs me ze tinkles!"
Right, under the category of exspensive stuff that doesn't work to well.
Ya, our stuff is junk, but it's better than nothing. Isn't it?
Anyhow, them dixie chicxs are doing good stuff for us.
Hey ivanoski, turn that camera off, I gotta pick my nose, it's dinner time.
Perhaps they bought shares in the Iraqi scrap metal market...
Looks like we have a new candidate to replace Iraq when we are done there!
Did someone say Evil Empire?
The bombing starts in five minutes...
OTOH, maybe we should encourage all our potential military enemies to buy Russian weapons. They've served us well in Iraq.
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