MOSCOW. March 27 (Interfax-AVN) - Moscow believes that South Korea's decision to exclude the Russian SU-35 multifunctional contract from the competition for the fighter supply contract has purely political grounds.
A spokesman for the management of the Sukhoi aircraft corporation told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday that Russia had made a decision to participate in the competition after South Korea assured it many times that the tender would be as fair and transparent as possible. Nevertheless, the competition has been going on against the background of the increasing political and economic pressure from the United States, he claimed.
"We expected that the decision on the outcome of the tender would have a purely political nature, and it indeed happened that way. We will never agree that we have lost the competition due to technical reasons or because of offering a too high price," the spokesman said.
Russia met all demands of the competition's organizers, he stressed. The SU-35 fighter was fully adjusted to the South Korean infrastructure of aircraft servicing and combat application.
In addition to the SU-35, the competition involved the F-15E of the U.S. Boeing company, the Rafale of the French Dassau company and an aircraft of the Eurofighter consortium.
According to the latest reports from Seoul, South Korea dropped Eurofighter as well. Only the F-15 and Rafale will continue the competition. The winner is expected to be announced in April.
South Korea is planning to procure 40 up-to-date fighters spending USD3.1bn-3.2bn on the purchase. According to unofficial reports, the Rosoboronexport state-owned arms trader and Sukhoi company requested less than USD3bn for the supplies of a SU-35 batch.