The Bangladesh government would like to buy more sophisticated arms from Russia, said Russian Ambassador to Dhaka Alexander A Nikolaev.
“I heard the opinion of certain high-ranking military representatives of the Bangladesh Armed Forces that they would like to purchase Russian-made military hardware,” said the Russian ambassador.
He was speaking at a discussion organised by Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh at the National Press Club yesterday.
He said under the government-to-government arrangements, the supply of highly sophisticated military hardware like ant-aircraft or anti-tank missiles or highly sophisticated Yak 130 combat fighter jets were accomplished.
During the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Russia in 2013, Bangladesh signed $1 billion loan deal to purchase arms from the country with an interest rate of 4.5% and the repayment period would begin from 2018.
Rooppur nuclear plant
The ambassador said the construction of nuclear power plant was supported not only by the government but also by the representatives of the BNP.
He said couple of years back BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia personally told him that the idea of nuclear power plant was initiated long ago while BNP was in power.
The chairperson clearly supported the construction of nuclear power plant, he said.
The ambassador said the major construction work of the nuclear project would begin in April or middle of this year.
The nuclear power plant is the biggest ever development project in the country with an estimated cost of $12.65 billion.
Saudi-led anti-ISIS coalition
The Russian ambassador said his government was initially astonished when Bangladesh joined the Saudi-led anti-ISIS coalition along with over 30 countries.
He said they knew that Bangladesh would not send any peacekeeper to any country without the approval of the UN Security Council.
He, however, said at present they are not interested to know about the development in the coalition.