Iraq has bought 421 UAZ Hunter jeeps for $2.5 million, Ulyanovsk Automobile Works, or UAZ, announced Wednesday. The United States, which is occupying Iraq, will foot the bill for the vehicles, an UAZ spokeswoman said.
Russia has traditionally had close economic ties with Iraq. But many observers believed that relationship would end when Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime was deposed by a coalition of U.S. and British forces last year.
A growing number of Russian transportation contracts with Iraq is changing that perception.
Last week Tatarstan-based truckmaker KamAZ announced it had inked a deal to supply Iraq with 195 buses worth more than $10 million last week. The company would not reveal who had ordered the buses that it said would be used on suburban transportation routes. It is likely the U.S.-backed Governing Council would have placed such an order.
In early February, Nizhny Novgorod-based carmaker GAZ delivered 5,000 Volga taxis, fulfilling an estimated $25 million deal that was signed before the war through the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program.
UAZ does not seem shy about following in the footsteps of U.S. troops. In January, the company said, it delivered 1,000 Hunter jeeps to the United Nations in Afghanistan to be used during the country's first postwar elections. UAZ said it will deliver 600 more Hunters later this month.
One of the largest companies in one of Russia's poorest regions, UAZ is named after a town that carries Lenin's birth name, Ulyanov. It has supplied Russian security forces with rugged if not stylish all-terrain vehicles for years.
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