Webloggin » Deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere

According to sources, a Russian navy squadron set off for Venezuela today in a deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere unprecedented since the Cold War, in a bid by Russia to boost military links in Latin America. The Russians will conduct joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy.

Translation: to poke a stick at the United States of America again. The Russians may be making a little stopover in Syria. hmmm….

The Kremlin has moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations amid increasingly strained relations with Washington after last month’s war between Russia and Georgia.

During the Cold War, Latin America became an ideological battleground between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said the nuclear-powered Peter the Great cruiser accompanied by three other ships sailed from the Northern Fleet’s base of Severomorsk on Monday. The ships will cover about 15,000 nautical miles to conduct joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy, he told The Associated Press.

Dygalo refused to comment on Monday’s report in the daily Izvestia claiming that the ships were to make a stopover in the Syrian port of Tartus on their way to Venezuela. Russian officials said the Soviet-era base there was being renovated to serve as a foothold for a permanent Russian navy presence in the Mediterranean.

Above: The nuclear-powered Peter the Great cruiser, pictured in 2004, and three other ships are off to Venezuela. (continue reading)

From Michael Schwirtz, NYT:

Last week, two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers flew to Venezuela for exercises over the Caribbean Sea, and a Russian delegation led by Igor I. Sechin, a deputy prime minister and chairman of the Russian oil company Rosneft, visited Caracas and Havana for talks on expanding economic ties. It was Mr. Sechin’s second visit to the region in less than two months. [snip]

Russia has denied that the war in Georgia had any connection to the Russian navy’s planned exercises with Venezuela. “These exercises were planned long before the Georgian-Ossetian conflict,” Mr. Dygalo said. “They are not linked to the conflict.” (continue reading at Peace and Freedom ‘08)

Russia’s strategic bomber Tu-160 or White Swan, the largest supersonic bomber in the world, lands at Engels Air Base near Saratov, about 700 kilometers (450 miles) southeast of Moscow, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008. Two of these aircraft recently deployed to Venezuela. NATO knows Russia’s biggest supersonic bomber as the Blackjack.(AP Photo/Misha Japaridze)