President of the Libyan House of Representatives promised to fulfill contracts concluded with Russia during Ghaddafi´s rule
Libya´s leadership, located at country´s eastern city of Tobruk, is ready to fulfil contracts for acquisition of arms, which were concluded with Russia during Muammar Ghaddafi´s rule. This was confirmed by President of the Libyan House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh Issa. „A committees will be established, tasked with checking and evaluating the pace of fulfilment of the contracts in the defence sphere, concluded with Russia, during Muammar Ghaddafi´s rule. They will be fulfilled if the current willingness of both parties lasts“, informed Mr. Issa. Libya is currently in the situation, where there are two governments, formed by two internationally recognized constitutional bodies. Coalitional cabinet of ministers, based in Tripoli is in conflict with the parliament in Tobruk, and is supported by chief of Libyan armed forces – marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar. Main contracts for weapons delivery were signed in 2008, during president Putin´s visit to Tripoli. Other major contracts were also concluded in 2009 and 2010. Their volume was estimated to be around 4,6 billion USD, even though the actual volume of signed contracts was slightly above 2 billion USD. The sale was supposed to be in parallel with official cancellation of Libyan debt towards Russia from Cold war period. In 2010, a contract was signed for 6 pcs of Yak-130 combat trainers. Russia promised to modernize 200 Libyan T-72 tanks and supply 3 Molniya class corvettes. In 2013-2014, it was scheduled to deliver Bal-E mobile coastal missile system and rockets for URAN-E shipborne missile system (worth 290 mil. EUR). Discussion about deliveries of “TOR-M2” and S-300 PMU-2 surface-to-air missile systems; Su-35S and Su-30MK2 heavy multirole fighters; mobile anti-aircraft missile systems “PANTSIR-S1”; T-90S MBT and self-propelled multiple rocket launcher systems.
Weapons of Russian origin, which actually made it to Libya, were 14 pcs of 9P157-2 Khrizantema-S tank destroyers, delivered according to the contract from 2009. First of them were handed to the Ghaddafi government and second batch of 10 machines, was delivered to newly recognized government in 2013.