OREANDA-NEWS. March 05, 2011. In its statements and actions, Russia has joined the international community in condemning the violence by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya against his citizens. But that has not stopped Russia from counting up its business losses from canceled arms sales to Libya.

Russia will lose USD 4 billion because of the unrest in Libya and the subsequent United Nations embargo, Sergei V. Chemezov, the director of the Russian state company in charge of weapons exports, said on Friday.

Over all, unrest in the Middle East has toppled or threatens to topple several governments that are longtime customers of Russian military industries, Mr. Chemezov said, and the total losses could reach USD 10 billion.

The comments by Mr. Chemezov, a close ally of Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, reflected the business calculations that are a world away from the pain of the conflicts on the ground.

He characterized the financial setbacks as “lost opportunity costs” so far because factories had not yet incurred outlays to build the orders for Libya. In 2008, Russia waived Libya’s Soviet-era debt in exchange for new weapons orders.

“We signed contracts, but they had not yet taken effect,” he said. “The money we could have received, but we will not receive, is about USD 4 billion.”

Mr. Chemezov declined to say what was on Libya’s new order list, but he said recently that Russia had shipped mostly spare parts for the country’s Soviet-built weaponry.

Through his job at the giant Russian state company Rostekhnologia, Mr. Chemezov is one of the world’s largest arms dealers. He expressed regret that Libyan weapons may now find their way onto the black market, and he took pains to emphasize that Russia adheres strictly to United Nations rules in its sales of lethal machinery around the world.

Russia supported the arms embargo that was recently imposed by the United Nations Security Council, despite knowing the cost to its domestic industries, he said.

“We are a civilized country,” Mr. Chemezov said. “We understand that any violation of human rights, whichever side is doing it, whatever our friendly relations with them, all the same, we need to support the people, the simple people. We cannot allow them to kill people for no reason.”

When the sanctions took effect, Mr. Chemezov said that Rostekhnologia immediately turned around a ship laden with aircraft spare parts that was bound for Libya, though it “had nearly reached Libyan shores.”

Russia is hardly alone in suffering or risking setbacks because of the overthrow of authoritarian governments in the Middle East.

The Libyan Army filled its now partially looted arsenals with weapons from France, the United States, Sweden, North Korea and other countries, according to an assessment by Jane’s Information Group. Libya also has obtained weaponry from the European defense contractor BAE Systems; the American defense company Raytheon; a branch of Saab of Sweden; and Beretta, the Italian gunsmith, according to Jane’s.

International weapons experts have expressed concern in particular about photographs showing rebels carrying looted, shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles that look like they are from the former Eastern bloc. If they were to fall into the hands of terrorists on the black market, these missiles could pose a danger to civilian airliners.

Mr. Chemezov said Russia was probably not the culprit in the dissemination of these weapons. Russia, he said, has sold no shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons to Libya since the Soviet Union fell, though it may have provided them before 1992, in which case they would be obsolete.

Mr. Chemezov said he had seen estimates that Russia would lose as much as USD 10 billion if the United Nations expanded arms embargoes to other Middle Eastern or North African countries.

Where could the Russian industry, in particular, turn to cover this loss?

“There is always Latin America,” he said.