France-Russia warship deal in choppy waters amid sanctions against Putin

At the shipyard in Saint Nazaire the superstructure sticks out like a sore thumb, a great tower surrounded by cranes and lifting devices that signal to the town that the helicopter carrier is moored here, in the oily waters of the naval dockyard.

Peering through the barbed wire, you can pick out its name, Vladivostok, in Cyrillic script on its hull. A Russian Orthodox priest came to baptise this 200-metre monster. Further along, in a dry dock, its younger sister, Sebastopol, has also been promised to the Kremlin.

Two “grey” ships, as they call naval vessels at the yard; two stumbling blocks for European diplomacy as it attempts to toughen sanctions against Vladimir Putin, just as the Vladivostok starts its sea trials.

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