Russian warships drills not provocation: Chavez

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CARACAS: Russian warships were to arrive in Venezuela Tuesday for joint manoeuvres -- Moscow's first military presence in the region since the Cold War, as Washington closely monitored the situation.

"They're not a provocation but an exchange" between "two free, sovereign countries that are getting closer," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said in a news conference late Monday.

"We carried out maneuvers with Brazil recently, with France, with the Netherlands and now with Russia."

The joint exercises were to coincide with a two-day visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Venezuela, the strongest US critic in the region.

Analysts see Medvedev as bringing a defiant message to Washington's doorstep, in the wake of Russian outrage at US plans to install a strategic missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, and support for the brief Georgia war in August.

Venezuelan defense officials said the ships, including the nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great and destroyer Admiral Chabankenko, would arrive early Tuesday.

Medvedev was due to arrive Wednesday and meet fiercely anti-American president Chavez on Thursday, before heading to communist Cuba.

The maneuvers will start on Wednesday in port and take place at sea on December 1, Venezuelan Operations Command chief General Jesus Gonzalez told reporters Monday.

A Russian naval spokesman said in Moscow that the exercises would include operation planning, helping ships in distress and supplying ships on the move.

"If the Venezuelans and the Russians want to have, you know, a military exercise, that's fine, but we'll obviously be watching it very closely," US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday.


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