From RIA Novosti:  Russia does not produce the type of fuel necessary for the French-made Mistral-class amphibious assault vessels it has ordered, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Tuesday. . . .

“Probably, our chemists will prepare some special additives to solve this problem,” Rogozin, who oversees Russia’s military industry, told reporters on Tuesday. In January, Rogozin criticized the 1.2 billion euro deal to buy the ships, saying they would not be able to operate in cold weather, but did not then specify the reason.

The problem probably arose because Europe uses slightly different, cleaner diesel than Russian marine diesels, said an oil refinery engineer in London who spoke to RIA Novosti on condition of anonymity.

“The Russians could probably make the right grade fuel at a refinery of theirs somewhere, but then you have the problem of specially transporting and storing it,” he said. “You couldn’t just stick that fuel in the existing storage system and expect it to be clean. . . .”

Rogozin said insufficient scientific advice had been taken in Russia prior to the latest decisions about purchases of arms and military equipment. “The devil is in the detail, so now we are looking into the problems that we might face when using those ships,” Rogozin said.  (photo: Aleksei Danichev/RIA Novosti)

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