Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is welcome to fly on one of two Russian strategic bombers that landed in Venezuela yesterday, a Russian air force commander said. "If they ask nicely, we'll ensure him a safe ride and give him a bird's eye view of the Caribbean,'' Gen. Pavel Androsov, the head of Russia's long-range air force, said in Moscow today in comments posted on the Web site of state broadcaster Vesti 24.
The TU 160 planes will conduct training flights for several days over neutral waters, the Russian Defense Ministry said yesterday. Planes from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization followed the Russian planes to South America, the ministry said. Russian warships, including the atomic-powered Peter the Great cruiser, may take part in joint naval exercises later this year in Venezuela, Interfax reported earlier this week, citing Russia's Foreign Ministry.
"This is a notice,'' Chavez said today during a speech broadcast by Venezuelan state television. "Russia has large investments here. We're strategic allies.'' Chavez visited Moscow in July on a shopping trip for air defense systems, submarines and other weaponry and signing energy deals. Russia has already sold billions of dollars of weapons to the oil-rich Latin American nation, its closest ally in the region.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the U.S. is watching the movements "closely.''
"These are Cold War-era assets,'' he told reporters in Washington today. "I will leave it to the Russians and the Venezuelans to describe the purpose of their activities.''
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