Official website of the President of Russia

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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, dear comrades,

It is my pleasure to welcome you all on board the large anti-submarine ship Admiral Chabanenko.

I would like to start by thanking the President of Venezuela and all of our Venezuelan friends for the invitation to visit your country, for the chance to take part in these exercises, and for your overall very friendly attitude towards our Armed Forces and our Navy.

Our strategic bombers, our strategic air forces, recently visited Venezuela, and now it is a group of our naval vessels that has come here. This is a sign that our military cooperation is growing, and this is very useful.

We are ready to continue developing this cooperation in all different areas, as we agreed during the Venezuelan President’s visit to the Russian Federation, because these kinds of events and our coordination on these matters is one of the factors that can help to guarantee stability in the region and in the world as a whole.