pushing ahead with a symbolic projection of Moscow’s power in a traditional US zone of influence.

More like— Symbolic waning of U.S. sphere of influence. _related

In a televised question-and-answer session today Putin said,

“I’m going to reveal a big military secret to you. When we announced that our warships were headed for Venezuela to participate in a joint exercise, we received many questions – honestly speaking, I had not expected this – requests from many countries for our warships to call at their ports.”

Russian and Venezuelan warships concluded on Tuesday the active phase of VenRus-2008, during which they practiced deployment, coordinated tactical maneuvering, air defense, search, pursuit and the detention of a ship suspected of illegal activities.

The Russian task force arrived in Venezuela at the end of November, following a two-month tour of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, which saw Russian ships visiting Libya, Turkey and France.

...ick.
nice one mic.

Ukraine and Georgia: Entry into NATO Put Off Indefinitely

NATO ministers in Brussels have decided to ignore US wishes and to delay the admission of Ukraine and of Georgia in effect indefinitely in what the Washington Administration is sheepishly trying to claim is a positive ‘compromise.’ The decision, following EU member state alarm last August over the prospect of European states having to go to war at some point against Russia over an incalculable despot in the Caucasus or in Kiev who decided to provoke Moscow to react, was simply too much.

The Germans have a far too deep and painful collective memory of the last war with Russia to be willing to treat such a prospect as lightly as Condi Rice or Washington seems willing to do. The decision deepens growing tectonic fault lines across the Atlantic, as the ‘Made in USA’ financial crisis deepens and the dollar looks more and more vulnerable once hedge fund repatriation effects by year-end wind down. The year 2009 will be clearly more turbulent even than 2008 in world geopolitics.

More specifically :

The German Süddeutsche Zeitung noted Wednesday in an article supporting the NATO decision: “Ukraine is very far, generations away, from NATO. And so long as Georgia is in conflict with the rebel provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia it will not be accepted by the alliance, because no one wants to be drawn into a new war in the Caucasus. It will take decades to defuse the situation.”

AND

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the US has pursued a policy of systematic military and political encirclement of Russia. During the Cold War and prior to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, direct US military influence ended at the borders of West Germany. Since then, the US has extended its military presence by no less than 1,200 kilometres (745 miles) eastwards and now has NATO soldiers in Estonia, directly on Russia’s border.