Paris is expected to fund the compensation from €2 billion that Poland will pay to buy French helicopters.

The decision on compensating Russian costs for the Mistral ships hasn’t yet been legally formalized; however France and Russia will take another month to set the exact terms of the annulment of the contract for the Mistral war ships.

The contract for the delivery of the Mistral helicopter carriers was signed between the French company DCNS/STX and Russia’s arms distributor Rosoboronexport in 2011.

France was expected to handover the first ship in November 2014, but the delivery has been postponed indefinitely partly due to pressure on France by the US and the EU, which imposed a series of sanctions against Moscow over its accession of Crimea and alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis.