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Russia sells $14 billion worth of military hardware in 2016

2016 was successful for Russia in the military-technical cooperation field by and large, according to Russian presidential aide Vladimir Kozhin

MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Russia in 2016 sold approximately $14 billion worth of weapons and other military hardware, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Kozhin said on Monday, adding that work on some contracts was still continuing.

"The overall amount of export stands at some $14 billion, but the year is not over yet and work on major contracts is still in progress," Kozhin said at the Golden Idea award ceremony of Russia’s federal service for military-technical cooperation on Monday.

Kozhin said that 2016 was successful for Russia in the military-technical cooperation field by and large.

"Last year, when we were merely considering plans for 2016, we said a lot about how complicated it would be and there were considerable reasons for that. The sanctions concerned practically every single actor on the market of armaments. The same is true of actions by our pseudo-partners - some covert and others, overtly harsh and lacking any principles - from pressures on our partners and leaders of countries to outspoken freeze on accounts and transactions for the technologies provided," he added.

Kozhin said that in 2017 one should not expect the lifting of sanctions from Russia.

"As far as next year, 2017, is concerned, we should not expect that all sanctions will evaporate on January 1 and we will start working in a comfortable environment," Kozhin said.

Earlier, President Vladimir Putin said that the overall value of Russia’s weapons export contracts remained at a level of more than 50 billion dollars.