At a news conference with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev this week in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France and Russia launched "exclusive negotiations" on the sale of four Mistral amphibious assault carriers built by France.

"This is a symbol of trust between our countries," said Medvedev, who is eager to acquire the warships to modernize the Russian navy's aging fleet. "I hope that these negotiations will be crowned by success."

France has in the past months intensely lobbied for the multibillion-dollar deal. Last November, a Mistral vessel sailed to St. Petersburg to convince the Kremlin to agree to what would be its largest arms deal signed with a Western country and the first major one with a NATO member.

The 650-foot Mistral is capable of transporting and deploying 16 helicopters, up to 70 vehicles and 450 soldiers, although troop numbers can be doubled for short-term deployment. The ship has an estimated price of $750 million and can deploy four landing barges at great speed. Russia is mulling to buy three or four Mistral carriers and a license to build more of the ships itself.

Russian navy officials began calling for the vessel earlier this year, frustrated with the time it took their Black Sea fleet to carry out amphibious landing operations in the five-day war with Georgia in 2008.

But the deal is highly controversial with Russia's neighbors.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has lashed out at Paris, saying that a Mistral carrier would enable Russia to invade all former Soviet Republics "within hours" instead of weeks. The prospective sale is "very unusual and very, very risky," he said last month in London.

Estonia warned that Paris, with the sale, would hand Russia a considerable military advantage in the Baltic Sea.

Paris has tried to appease those concerns. The country's European Affairs chief Pierre Lellouche last month told officials in Lithuania that the Mistral would be sold to Russia as a civilian vessel without military equipment.

The typical armament for a Mistral contains of two Simbad missile launchers and four 12.7mm M2-HB Browning machine guns.

Equipped with a 69-bed hospital, the Mistral carriers in service with the French navy are integrated into the NATO Response Force and have completed U.N. and EU-led peacekeeping missions.

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