Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez met yesterday in Moscow with his Russian counterparts Russian President Dimitri Medvédev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. They seemed to enjoy every moment of the occasion, even though it was rather short when it came to hard developments. The encounter was arranged to formalize a military and defense alliance between the two countries, dubbed the “Alianza Estratégica.” The three leaders placed great stress on the importance of the meeting in which trade deals, arms sales, coordinated energy policies and the expansion of trade and joint financial services were achieved between the two nations. By 2007, bilateral trade between Russia and Venezuela had reached 1 billion dollars and is now likely to expand exponentially. The Russian and Venezuelan leaders carried out negotiations for the likely acquisition of a large number of tanks, which are viewed by the Venezuelan high command as being indispensable to the modernization of the country’s armed forces. Some Washington’s insiders believe that Caracas might be considering the purchase of the first of what could be several Russian submarines, as well as AN-74 military transport aircrafts, while at the same time continuing with talks about importing a Kalashnikov automatic weapons assembly factory schedule to be put into operation in Venezuela.
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