MOSCOW, December 11. /TASS/. Military-technical cooperation between Moscow and Caracas has been developing very actively of late, Russian Ambassador to Venezuela Vladimir Zaemsky said on Monday.
"Military-technical cooperation is one of many areas of our cooperation. Over the past years it has been developing very fruitfully," the ambassador told the Venezuelan state television after the Russian warplanes, including two Tu-160 strategic bombers, arrived in the country.
The ambassador noted that a new meeting of the Russian-Venezuelan intergovernmental commission is being prepared to discuss new joint projects. "This will be another attempt to launch new projects. These projects will provide great assistance in developing mutually beneficial relations between Russia and Venezuela," he said.
Earlier, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said the Russian warplanes that arrived in Venezuela would take part in joint flights.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, two Tu-160 strategic bombers, an An-124 heavy military transport plane and an Il-62 long-haul plane of the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces that took off from aerodromes in Russia covered a distance of 10,000 kilometers and flew over the Atlantic Ocean, the Barents, Norwegian and Caribbean Seas in strict compliance with the international rules of the use of airspace.
This is not the first such flight performed by Russian Tu-160 warplanes. Such planes reached Venezuela in September 2008 and in October-November 2013.