MOSCOW, November 11. /TASS/. Caracas has not asked Moscow for military assistance or to deploy Russian weapons in Venezuela, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Russian media, including TASS.
"No, they haven’t come to us," he said. "I think it is incorrect to compare our relations with Belarus, which is part of the Union State, with which we have synchronous, coordinated, unified positions on all the key issues of international security, on the one hand, and our relations with Venezuela, which is a friendly country and a strategic comprehensive partner, which we recently signed an agreement on."
"But, of course, taking into account geography, it is incorrect to compare this with the union that we have with the Republic of Belarus," the Russian Foreign Minister noted.
"This is a completely new agreement (on strategic partnership - TASS). The document was signed in May during the participation of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in the events marking the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War in Moscow. Now it is at the final stage of ratification. It states the need to continue our security cooperation, including military-technical cooperation."
Russia is "ready to fully act within the framework of the obligations that were mutually stipulated in this agreement with our Venezuelan friends. It has not yet entered into force. However, the ratification procedures have been completed in Venezuela. We have only a few days left, both chambers - the State Duma and the Federation Council - have already held hearings, so we're getting close. We will strictly adhere to what it states."