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Chavez' Defense Includes Russian Tanks
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced that he intends to buy Russian weapons, including tanks, during his coming visit to Russia. The Venezuelan leader plans to hold talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on that topic in Moscow on July 22, the Associated Press reports. Chavez has already declared his intentions to purchase Russian submarines because the United States is strongly opposed to Venezuela having a submarine fleet. “They threaten us all the time and we have to defend our revolution,” Chavez explained.
Chavez also expressed the hope that the military-technical cooperation between Russia and Venezuela will continue for a long time to come. He said the Venezuelan Air Forces consists of outdated American planes and the U.S. has not provided any replacement parts for them for the last five years. Chavez thanked Russia for delivering a squadron of Sukhoi planes, which “fly remarkably.” In addition, he said, Venezuela has old NATO machine guns that hardly work. Now a shipment of Russian Kalashnikovs has arrived, with which “Venezuela is quite satisfied.”
In 2006, the Venezuelan president concluded a $3-billion contract with Russia on the purchase of weapons, including 100,000 Kalashnikov machineguns, 24 Su-30 fighter jets and 53 military helicopters.
www.kommersant.com
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