I think no country of its size takes rearmament program so extensivly ...

Few things I can remember at the moment ...

Personal equipment

- AK Factory
- Two AK munition factory
- 100 000 AK-103
- 5000 Dragunov sniper rifles
- Night optic for AK/Dragunov
- 1800 Igla-S MANPAD
- Minimi machine gun

Air Force

- 24 Su-30MKV (rumors are Su-35 are done deal)
- 38 Mi-17
- 3 Mi-26
- 10 Mi-35 (rumors are Mi-28 is a done deal)
- 36 K-8
- 10-12 Y-8 transport


Antiaircraft

- S-300V on order (confirmed)
- BUK-M1-2
- Pechora-2M
- TOR-M1 (considered)

Ground forces

- Smerch (most likely on order)
- 92 T-72B tanks
- BTR-80/BMP (most likely on order)

Naval

- 4 POVZEE
- Yakhont coastal missile battery
- Subs are mentioned often but no deal yet

EW

- 3 JYL-1 3D radar
- JY11B radar

That is a very impressive list.

Forgive my ignorance but does Venezuela produce anything for export that might be valuable to Russia.

It is just that I think a two way trade in goods will lead to a more healthy and productive relationship than if they are just a customer of weapons.

GarryB wrote:That is a very impressive list.

Forgive my ignorance but does Venezuela produce anything for export that might be valuable to Russia.

It is just that I think a two way trade in goods will lead to a more healthy and productive relationship than if they are just a customer of weapons.

Venezuela produces oil and Russian/Chinese companies have taken place of western companies under different contract.
Thats about it.

At the moment Russian and Venezuelan govremments are forming joint bank to finance Russian arms sales to Venezuela.

4Bin are in preparation.

Well in that case I hope Russias experience of trying to diversify their economy is of benefit to Venezuela too.

http://bmpd.livejournal.com/150091.html

Nice pics of Pechora-2M in Venezuela. This modernization has picked up quite a few sales here and there.

It could be that Venezuela becomes for Russia what Saudi Arabia is for US.

I think Venezuela surpassed Saudi Arabia by its oil reserves.

The Saudis have no real military problems... I mean we saw what happened when Saddam invaded a country near Saudi Arabia in 1990.

That enormous over reaction wasn't about Kuwaite. Kuwaite isn't even a real democracy even today and it doesn't have that much oil.

What the fear was that a successful invasion of Kuwaite might be followed by an invasion of Saudi Arabia and that cannot even be considered.

In such an environment Saudi Arabia doesn't need a military force as the US guarantees its security. This means that Saudi Arabia can use military purchases as political tools to buy influence and power and control.

Pretty much right, though the west would not want the current royal family to fall from power as any democratic regime would be a regime of the people and the average saudi doesn't like America much and certainly does not like Israel.

The US might like democracy in Iraq or Iran as imposed by the US, but it certainly does not want democracy in Saudi Arabia... real democracies are much more expensive to control.