LIMA —

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday embarked on a four-nation Latin American tour seen as sending a defiant message to the United States at the close of the George W Bush presidency.

The tour, including talks with the outgoing U.S. leader, naval exercises off Venezuela and a visit to arch U.S. foe Cuba, has evoked fears of renewed Cold War-style rivalry in Latin America, while attracting some ridicule from skeptics.

“The current level of cooperation could be broader than in the Soviet era. Latin America has already ceased to be the United States’ backyard,” a Russian diplomatic source told the Russian daily Kommersant.

“Now the region is following its own line, which gives Russia an opportunity to strengthen our position,” said the official.

Medvedev starts his tour in Peru, meeting Bush at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, where Russia’s anti-U.S. stance and failure to join the World Trade Organization contrasts with the views of most members.

Officials said Medvedev and the outgoing U.S. leader would discuss the global financial crisis, the August war in Georgia and the touchstone issue of U.S. missile defense plans in eastern Europe.

Russia analysts say Moscow’s quest for influence in Latin America is intended to counter U.S. influence in the former Soviet satellites of eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

On Monday the Russian leader heads to Brazil, a key trading partner with which Russia is interested in joint energy projects.

On Wednesday, he goes to Venezuela for talks with President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of Washington, as Russian warships led by a nuclear-powered cruiser prepare for joint exercises in the Caribbean Sea.

Russian media say officials will also pursue arms and energy deals with Venezuela, which has already bought a slew of Russian weapons.

The weapons sales have prompted concern on the part of U.S. ally Colombia that Venezuelan stockpiles could fall into the hands of leftist FARC rebels.

Lima-based analyst Alejandro Deustua, of the country’s Diplomatic Academy, criticized Russia’s military role in South America, saying it was time for Russia to “explain plainly to each South American country what their intentions are with these military exercises.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Russian weapons sold in Latin America were defensive rather than offensive and that Russian moves were not aimed at “third countries”—a clear reference to the United States, RIA Novosti reported.

Medvedev rounds off his tour in Cuba, the flagship ally of the Soviet Union in the Cold War and the United States’ communist arch-foe in the western hemisphere since the late 1950s.

Russian energy firms have been actively seeking projects in Latin America such as possible involvement in a planned South American gas pipeline.

A proposed Russian purchase of a major stake in Spanish energy company Repsol—a major player in the region—is likely to advance such goals.

But Medvedev’s tour has drawn repeated sniping from the influential daily Kommersant, which said Russia’s plans were falling apart as oil prices fell and Moscow’s economic fortunes plunged.

The newspaper wryly noted Chinese President Hu Jintao had beaten Medvedev to the region on a tour this week and observed: “The Russian delegation headed by Medvedev may not be offered the most profitable contracts in Cuba but only those that don’t appetize Chinese businessmen.”

Latin America analyst Johanna Forman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, described as “ham-fisted” a trip crafted months before the Nov 4 election victory of a more conciliatory US president, Barack Obama.

“It’s more an in-your-face approach that may not resonate when you have a new administration ... The Russians are still fighting a war with Bush,” she said.

Wire reports

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7 Comments

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  powderfinger at 09:34 AM JST - 22nd November

  He forgot Canada?

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  SezWho2 at 10:19 AM JST - 22nd November

  Why would you think so? When Bush went to the Olympics but didn't stop in Japan, had he forgotten it? Don't you think that the Russians are simply trying to keep an overland escape route open for Governor Palin?

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  smithinjapan at 12:53 PM JST - 22nd November

  powder: Ummm... hate to tell you this, but Canada is not part of "Latin America". Perhaps you ought to do a little Geography study.

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  SuperLib at 01:23 PM JST - 22nd November

  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

  I always get a kick out of seeing the words "Russian President" and "Dmitry Medvedev" in the same sentence.

  Russia seems to be making a grand tour that no one is really noticing. There is no American influence in Cuba and Venezuela so there's not much to counter there. He can sell more weapons to Chavez but the people are already starting to resent how he spends his money while the economy there spins downward. If anything an announcement of military exercises and weapons sales will probably work in the US's favor on the streets.

  Maybe if Bush had been reelected the tour would mean more. But he wasn't.

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  powderfinger at 01:48 PM JST - 22nd November

  How much sillier can the media get? They rail at Bush for his supposedly unilateral approach to matters international and then here they turn around and make the man President of the Entire Western Hemisphere so they can lionize yet another socialist thug - Putin's cabin boy Medvedev - use the term 'defiant,' and thereby believe they are getting even with Dubya for having the gall to disregard for 8 years their editorial reporting on everything from the apocalyptic significance of simple climate anomalies to wildly inaccurate predictions of protests and riots like those of the Vietnam era that they ensured the public would engulf US campuses and cities if we went into Iraq.

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  SezWho2 at 02:27 PM JST - 22nd November

  There is no question that the US is the most powerful country on the planet. However, even powerful countries have weaknesses. As I see it, the weaknesses of the US are (1) propensity to fear, (2) dependence on consumption, (3) susceptibility to loss of influence and (4) conflict between theory and practice in universal human values. Medvedev's trip challenges the US on the first three of these.

  We can't really expect to put a missile shield in Poland (for defense against--ahem!--Iran) and to break a promise not to extend NATO to former Soviet satellites and then also expect the Russians to do nothing. This is especially true when South America has increasingly rejected the free market colonialism that had been foisted upon it. Medvedev's trip may yield nothing, but instead of defiance it is more like a glimpse of Christmas Yet to Come. Unfortunately, that vision may be wasted if we have not absorbed the lesson of Christmas Past.

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  JoeBigs at 07:40 PM JST - 22nd November

  Sad sad sad, we have left our back door wide open and the Russians/Soviets are trying to walk in......We have lost so much....

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