As British «Daily Telegraph» reports with reference to its sources in Washingtonat the beginning of April the USAproposed to Russiato deliver a large-scale party of weapons to Afghanistanoccupied by them. In particular it’s a question of 78 million cartridges to Kalashnikov, 100 thousand manual antitank grenade cup discharge and 12 thousand shots for tank weapons. More than that the order is supposing the purchases of the tanks Т-62, impact helicopters MI-24 and ATGM «Konkurs».
«Daily Telegraph» writes that the USAis ready to pay for it approximately 400 million dollar. This sum includes transportation costs and also, for some reason, the cost for guarantee from the part of Russianot to export arms and nuclear technologies to Iran.
The choice of Russiaas the supplier of the arm to Afghanistanthe British newspaper connects with the fact that Afghan army is equipped mainly with Soviet armament. It was told to «Daily Telegraph» in Pentagon that at first the Russian side thought it was a joke. Meanwhile Americans proposed to name the price of the deal and after that the offer was scrutinized seriously.
The opinion of the newspaper is that if it’s really so, then the deliveries of the Russian weapons to the Kabulregime can be started at the end of 2006. At the same time, the experts notice that in the number of the armament declared Kalashnikov is not included.
They explained it by the fact that АК-47 forms serious competition to the domestic products on the markets controlled by the Americans. AK-47 that have been produced since 1999 by American-Bulgarian JV «Arsenal» in the state Nevada. At this «Arsenal» offers its own «kalashnikovs» at the price of 65 dollars, at the time when Russian АК-103 cost approximately 400 dollars per one unit.
In many respects due to such dumping «Arsenal» once won the tender for the supply of tommy-guns which was organized by occupation administration in Iraq. Besides the USApurchased 5 – 10 thousand Kalashnikov for Iraqand Afghanistanfrom the enterprises in Estonia, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungaryand Jordan.
At last till the last time the Americans didn’t give up their attempts to sell АК-47 produced by «Arsenal» to Venezuela. Notwithstanding the fact that in May of the previous year Venezuelasigned the contract with Russiafor the delivery of 100 thousand AK-103. It’s true that the beginning of the practical realization of the deal appointed to the October was postponed several times. Not excepting that it happened because of the competition from the part of «Arsenal», but probably the reasons are different.
