Venezuela to Buy Russian Submarines £500m Worth

President Hugo Chávez is poised to buy at least five submarines from Russia in a £500m deal that will alarm the White House and confirms Venezuela as a growing military power in the region.
Mr Chávez is expected to sign the deal during a trip to Moscow next week. According to Kommersant newspaper, Venezuela has agreed an initial contract to buy five Project 636 diesel submarines, and four Project 637 Amur submarines at a later date.
Mr Chávez wants to use the submarines to thwart any possible future trade embargo by the US and to defend its oil-rich underwater shelf, the paper reported.
Last year he bought 24 Russian Sukhoi-30 two-seater attack aircraft, 34 helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikovs. The deal was reputedly worth £1.9bn.
Venezuela - which has a defence pact with Cuba - is now the world's second biggest purchaser of Russian military hardware after Algeria. If the full submarine deal goes ahead, Venezuela will have the largest submarine fleet in Latin America.
Military experts said yesterday that the diesel-powered submarines sold by Russia to Venezuela were no match for the US's nuclear fleet, and were based on a model used by the Germans during the second world war. Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent military analyst, said: "In the submarine world, it's the equivalent of a Lada. It's non-nuclear, runs on diesel-electric, and has a snorkel. Russia simply doesn't have the technology to produce modern torpedoes."
But, he said, they did still pose a serious threat.
"There are clearly a lot of sweeteners involved in this," he added. "A lot of people get rich, including Mr Chávez. And it annoys the US. It's a win-win situation."
Mr Chávez's planned visit to Moscow comes days before President Vladimir Putin heads to the US for talks with George Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine.
US-Russian relations have already plunged to what is broadly seen as the lowest point since the cold war, strained by Moscow's anger over US missile defence plans in Europe, and Washington's concerns about Mr Putin's backsliding on democracy and Russia's bullying of its post-Soviet neighbours.
Any submarine deal that would modernise Venezuela's capability, allowing it to threaten the US navy, would not get a warm response from the Pentagon. The US objected strongly to a deal in which Spain sold £890m of ships and aircraft to Venezuela in 2005.
Russia earlier supplied five similar submarines to China under a contract estimated to be worth £900m. Moscow has also angered the US by selling weapons to Syria and Iran.
Yesterday Russian defence officials confirmed that negotiations with Venezuela were at an advanced stage.
"Russian shipbuilders have offered the Amur submarine to Venezuela," a defence industry source told the news agency Interfax, adding that a deal for three subs costing $600m-plus could be signed later this month during Mr Chávez's trip.