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Russian navy ships to visit Libya

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-01 21:43

MOSCOW  -- The four warships that Russia is sending to Venezuela in its first deployment of military power to the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War also will visit Libya and several other Mediterranean countries, the navy said Wednesday.

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The announcement appeared to be the latest sign of Russia displaying what it regards as its growing military strength on the world stage.

Since defeating Georgia in August in a war over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, the Kremlin has vowed to send its military on regular maneuvers worldwide and moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American nations amid increasingly strained relations with Washington.

The Peter the Great nuclear-powered missile cruiser and three accompanying ships -- which left the Northern Fleet's base of Severomorsk on September 22 -- will sail through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on Sunday, navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said in a statement on Wednesday.

Dygalo said the Russian ships will call at the Libyan port of Tripoli and also visit several other unspecified Mediterranean ports before heading to Venezuela.

Russian news reports have said the squadron was expected to visit a Syrian port of Tartus. Russian officials have said that Tartus, which hosted Soviet ships during the Cold War, was being renovated to provide a foothold for a planned permanent Russian navy presence in the Mediterranean.

Dygalo said Wednesday that the ships also will perform training in various areas of the Mediterranean.

In a separate move, Russia also has dispatched a missile frigate to waters off Somalia where pirates seized a Ukrainian vessel carrying over 30 Soviet-designed tanks.

The Kremlin's decision to send warships to the Caribbean for joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy follows a weeklong visit to Venezuela by a pair of Russian strategic bombers last month.

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

The intensifying contacts with Venezuela appear to be a response to the US dispatch of warships to deliver aid to Georgia, which angered the Kremlin.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an unbridled critic of the US foreign policy, said that Latin America needs a strong friendship with Russia to help reduce US influence and keep peace in the region.

Russia has signed weapons contracts worth more than US$4 billion with Venezuela since 2005 to supply fighter jets, helicopters, and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles, and Moscow and Caracas are now negotiating new weapons deals.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also offered Chavez last week to help Venezuela develop nuclear energy -- a move likely to add to US concerns about the Kremlin's intentions in the region.