I found this in some other message board. I cannot verify if it's accurate or skewed or fiction, but post it here because it is on topic of Russias losses to a defeated Iraq. And the $8 billion ties in with what Baroda was saying.
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According to the CIA World Factbook, Russia controls roughly 5.8 percent of Iraq’s annual imports. Under the U.N. oil-for-food program, Russia’s total trade with Iraq was somewhere between $530 million and $1 billion for the six months ending in December of 2001.
According to the Russian Ambassador to Iraq, Vladimir Titorenko, new contracts worth another $200 million under the U.N. oil-for-food program are to be signed over the next three months.
Soviet-era debt of $7 billion through $8 billion was generated by arms sales to Iraq during the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq war.
Russia’s LUKoil negotiated a $4 billion, 23-year contract in 1997 to rehabilitate the 15 billion-barrel West Qurna field in southern Iraq. Work on the oil field was expected to commence upon cancellation of U.N. sanctions on Iraq. The deal is currently on hold.
In October 2001, Salvneft, a Russian–Belarus company, negotiated a $52 million service contract to drill at the Tuba field in Southern Iraq.
In April 2001, Russia’s Zaruezhneft company received a service contract to drill in the Saddam, Kirkuk, and Bai Hassan fields to rehabilitate the fields and reduce water incursion.
A future $40 billion Iraqi–Russian economic agreement, reportedly signed in 2002, would allow for extensive oil exploration opportunities throughout western Iraq. The proposal calls for 67 new projects, over a 10-year time frame, to explore and further develop fields in southern Iraq and the Western Desert, including the Suba, Luhais, West Qurna, and Rumaila projects. Additional projects added to the deal include second-phase construction of a pipeline running from southern to northern Iraq, and extensive drilling and gas projects. Work on these projects would commence upon cancellation of sanctions.
Russia’s Gazprom company over the past few years has signed contracts worth $18 million to repair gas stations in Iraq.
The former Soviet Union was the premier supplier of Iraqi arms. From 1981 to 2001, Russia supplied Iraq with 50 percent of its arms.
