Vietnam purchases Russian fighter jets

The Communist country will buy 40 Russian Su-35 fighter jets in a secretive $8 billion deal, the New York Times reported Monday. This is Vietnam’s largest arms deal yet using “money flow[ing] through joint oil-and-gas ventures [with Russia] instead of traditional cross-border banking channels,” United24 wrote. This is part of the nation’s recent shift from the West and comes one month after Russia proposed building a Vietnamese nuclear power plant. This deal furthers the prophesied Russia-led Asian alliance that will include Vietnam.