Russian military stronghold in Latin America

Recently Venezuela’s leader Hugo Chavez recognised the two Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. The question arises as to why Caracas did this? We have reason to ask ourselves whether Chavez has enough knowledge of geography and politics to find these so-called countries on a map. So what political, economic or other impulses prompted Hugo to take this step?

The answer is very simple. Moscow gives Caracas a huge supply of military hardware, artillery devices, ammunition and so on. In 2007-2008 Russia sold Venezuela military equipment worth USD 4 billion. After recognising Georgia’s breakaway territories the Venezuelan dictator was rewarded with a very soft loan of USD 2.2 billion to buy further Russian military hardware. Thus Venezuela is a bigger consumer of Russian arms than China or India.

Furthermore Chavez has said that he wants to spend over USD 30 billion over the coming three years on purchasing armaments. The question Western countries and the US in particular need to answer is why Chavez is buying such a huge quantity of arms and offensive weapons such as tanks.