The Russian Navy leaned on French shipbuilders a lot during the Czarist era for ship designs and ordnance. Then they went through an Italian influenced phase and finally after WW2 designs became mostly indigenous.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, warship development in Russia essentially froze for well over a decade, by purchasing French technology with petro-rubles they can help bridge that gap.
I would not discount the Russian naval design bureau's quite so fast though.
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