RUSSIA:RUSSIA SAID yesterday it would send a heavily armed nuclear-powered cruiser to the Caribbean for a joint naval exercise with Venezuela, its first major manoeuvres on the United States' doorstep since the Cold War.
Russian officials denied the mission was linked to a naval stand-off with US warships in the Black Sea, but it will take place at a time of high tension between Washington and Moscow over the conflict in Georgia.
Washington has played down the significance of the exercise.
Russia has criticised the US for sending a command ship and two other naval vessels to Georgia, on its southern border, to deliver aid and show support for President Mikheil Saakashvili after Moscow sent troops into Georgia.
Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev asked on Saturday how Washington would feel "if we now dispatched humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean . . . using our navy".
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said the naval mission to Venezuela would include the nuclear-powered battle cruiser Peter the Great, one of the world's largest combat warships. Moscow's most modern destroyer, the Admiral Chabanenko, will also go to the Caribbean.
Russia denied that the exercises were directed against the United States. "We are talking about a planned event not linked with current political circumstances and not in any way connected to events in Georgia," he told a news briefing. The exercises "will in no way be directed against the interests of a third country".
The ships will participate in "joint manoeuvres, practice search and rescue and communications drills", Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said. The Peter the Greatis heavily armed with both surface-to-surface and 500 surface-to-air missiles, said Jon Rosamund, editor of Jane's Navy International, a specialist publication. "On paper it's an immensely powerful ship," he said.
Admiral Eduard Baltin, former commander of Russia's Black Sea fleet, said the Caribbean manoeuvres meant "Russia is returning to the stage in its power and international relations which it, regrettably, lost at the end of the last century. No one loves the weak," he was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, an outspoken critic of the United States, said during a visit to Moscow in July that Russian warships or warplanes were welcome to visit.
Mr Chávez is a major arms client of Moscow, saying he needs Russian weapons to dissuade "the North American empire" from invading his country. - (Reuters)