Russia pays big for rusty aircraft carrier anchor

MOSCOW — Russian prosecutors disclosed Wednesday that the country’s underfunded navy paid an exorbitant price for a rusty old anchor for the country’s only aircraft carrier.

The Admiral Kuznetsov ordered a replacement anchor from the head of a contracted private firm for $135,000.

The prosecutor’s office said the firm’s owner purchased a used model in the Netherlands and then passed it on to the navy at a heavily inflated price.

“He bought it for just 1 million rubles [$34,000]” and sold it for four times that amount after forging the accompanying documents, the prosecutor’s office said.

“Although this supposedly new anchor did not match the required size and weight specifications, had a different serial number and signs of corrosion, it was still installed on the cruiser.”

Prosecutors said they would ask military investigators to open a formal inquiry. No details about the businessman’s whereabouts or why the navy had accepted the clearly unworthy anchor were released.

Russia’s outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev had vowed at the start of his term in office in 2008 to spare no expense in helping reinforce the country’s depleted naval armada with a new aircraft carrier fleet.

But those plans were abandoned with the onset of the 2008-2009 financial crisis and Russia still has only one aircraft carrier against the nearly dozen now operated by the U.S.

President-elect Vladimir Putin has promised to root out corruption plaguing Russia’s military procurement process once he assumes office for a third term in May.