Russia pledges ties with Venezuela

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez agreed to draft an energy pact on Friday, drawing Moscow closer to Washington’s most ardent Latin American foe. Chavez, known for his anti-U.S. rhetoric, hosted a visit by Russian bomber planes to Venezuela this month and Russian warships will hold exercises there in November, the first such manoeuvres in the Americas since the Cold War.

The establishment of closer ties between the two countries — including two visits by Chavez to Moscow since July — followed a rift between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s brief war with its neighbour Georgia in August. Russia announced this week it was making available to Venezuela a $1 billion loan to cover purchases of arms and military equipment from Russian manufacturers. At the talks in the town of Orenburg in the southern Urals, Dmitry Medvedev announced plan to hold joint naval exercises with Venezuela in the near future.

“Soon, at the end of November, we will have quite large-scale joint naval exercises. All this show what strategic level our relations have reached and I am sure the current visit will result in new successes.”, said Medvedev.

Chavez expressed his ” full approval of Russia’s modest reaction 1/8to Georgia’s action in South Ossetia 3/8 and our full support for Russian actions in the Caucasus”, although Venezuela did not match Russia’s recognition of Georgia’s separatist South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions as independent states.

Western governments accused Russia of acting disproportionately when it launched a massive counter-attack to crush an attempt by Georgian forces to retake South Ossetia. With Medvedev and Chavez watching, Russia’s Gazprom gas giant signed a memorandum of understanding with Venezuela’s PDVSA state oil firm and the two countries’ energy ministers agreed to draw up an energy cooperation pact. Chavez met Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow late on Thursday (September 25), and was given an undertaking that Russia would consider helping Venezuela develop nuclear power plants.

Chavez, who met Medvedev on the sidelines of a joint military exercise by Russia and Kazakhstan, addressed his Russian counterpart as “president and friend”. He welcomed the upcoming joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercise in the Caribbean and said that the Russian naval presence in the Venezuelan waters served the cause of peace. Several ships from Russia’s Northern Fleet, set off for Venezuela on Monday (September 22), one of them is battle cruiser Pyotr Velikiy. He thanked Medvedev for sending two TU-160 bombers to Venezuela this month, and took a swipe at Washington.

Russia denied the despatch of ships and aircraft to Venezuela was directed at Washington, but the deployments were announced soon after Medvedev complained about U.S. warships in the Black Sea, traditionally part of Russia’s sphere of influence.