ORENBURG, Russia (AFP) — Russia vowed Friday to bolster ties with Venezuela as the leaders of the two states met amid what the Kremlin described as efforts to forge a "solid counterweight" to the United States.
"Today we will sign a series of agreements to strengthen our cooperation," President Dmitry Medvedev said after greeting his fiercely anti-US Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, as "Dear Hugo."
The leaders then smiled and clapped as senior officials signed two deals which Russia's energy minister said would lead to "tens of billions of dollars" of investment in Venezuelan oil and gas fields.
Medvedev spoke after Chavez held talks near Moscow on Thursday with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who offered Russian help for developing nuclear power in Venezuela.
Chavez's visit -- his third since June 2007 -- came after Russian-US tensions soared in the wake of last month's conflict between Russia and Georgia, a US ally located in a vital energy transport area.
Speaking through a translator, Chavez thanked his "friend" Medvedev and reiterated his backing for Russia's recent actions in Georgia.
"I would like to use this occasion to offer our full, modest but completely solid support for Russia's actions" in the Caucasus, said Chavez.
Earlier this month, Russia dispatched a pair of Tu-160 strategic bombers to Venezuela followed by a naval flotilla led by the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser Peter the Great, one of the largest warships of its kind.
The Russian warships were to take part in joint manoeuvres with the Venezuelan navy in a part of the world the United States has traditionally regarded as its backyard.
"All of this shows the strategic nature of our relations," Medvedev said of the exercises.
The United States has said it will be watching the exercises very closely.
In a statement issued before the Medvedev-Chavez meeting in this city near the border with Kazakhstan, the Kremlin said it expected ties with Venezuela to further "efforts to find a solid counterweight to US influence."
Addressing Putin at his country residence late Thursday, Chavez said US global dominance was on the wane.
"Today like never before all that you said on the multi-polar world becomes reality. Let us not lose time," Chavez told Putin. "The world is fast developing geopolitically."
During the Georgia war, Washington angered Moscow by holding naval exercises near its Black Sea coast. And when the war ended, the United States used warships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.
The Kremlin on Thursday announced Moscow had agreed to grant Venezuela a one-billion-dollar (682-million-euro) loan to buy Russian arms.
Venezuela has signed deals for 4.4 billion dollars' worth of Russian arms since 2005, including fighter jets, tanks and assault rifles.
After Friday's meeting the heads of Russian gas giant Gazprom and Venezuelan energy firm PDVSA signed an agreement that Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said would lead to the formation of a massive oil and gas consortium.
Russia's five leading oil and gas companies will by spring 2009 join Venezuelan energy firms to invest "tens of billions of dollars," mainly in energy fields in the Orinoco Belt, he said.
The consortium could then invest in energy projects in Cuba and Bolivia, and eventually outside South America, he said.
Shmatko and his Venezuelan counterpart also signed a pledge to develop energy relations between the two governments.
Venezuela is the world's ninth biggest producer of oil and is a major supplier to the United States, while Russia is the world's second largest oil exporter and controls a quarter of global natural gas reserves.
Chavez arrived in Russia from China and was to continue on to France as part of a world tour.
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