Russia will deliver attack helicopters and mobile air-defense systems to Iraq in arms deals worth$4.2 billion signed earlier this year...
Russia will deliver attack helicopters and mobile air-defense systems to Iraq in arms deals worth$4.2 billion signed earlier this year, it was disclosed today during a visit to Moscow by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in which he met his counterpart Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Moscow will supply 30 Mil Mi-28NE night/all-weather capable attack helicopters, and 50 Pantsir-S1 gun-missile short-range air defense systems. The contracts, among the biggest ever signed between Iraq and Russia, were signed in April, July and August by Iraq's acting defense minister, according to documents released on Tuesday during al-Maliki's visit.
Vedomosti daily said the deal was Russia's largest arms deal since 2006.
Arms industry analyst Ruslan Pukhov of the Center for Analysis of Strategy and Technologies, a Moscow-based think tank, said the deal showed Baghdad's desire to break Washington's monopoly of arms supplies to the new government there.
The contracts comprised the third biggest package of deals for Russian arms sales since the 1991 Soviet collapse, after a $7.5 billion agreement with Algeria in 2006 and a $6 billion sale to Venezuela in 2009, CAST said.
Russia delivered about $13.2 billion in weapons last year, said Konstantin Makiyenko, an expert atCAST.
