Russians show off power on high seas

MOSCOW — The voyage of the cruiser Peter the Great, scheduled to arrive in Venezuela next week with a squadron of other Russian warships, was meant to showcase the Kremlin's ability to project naval power abroad and reassert its claim to great power status.

But the arrival of the 24,000-ton nuclear-powered vessel and its escorts may mark the end of an era of rising ambitions for the Russian navy, not its beginning.

Russia's plans to conduct exercises in the Caribbean for the first time since the Cold War were made before the global financial crisis mauled the country's energy-based economy. Plunging oil prices, some believe, could end Moscow's aspirations for a stronger presence in the Western Hemisphere.

The Peter the Great, a missile destroyer and two support vessels from Russia's Northern Fleet set off for Venezuela late September, in what was widely seen as a show of the Kremlin's anger over the U.S. dispatch of warships to deliver aid to Georgia after its August war with Russia. A pair of Russian strategic bombers visited Venezuela for a week in September. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent its planes and navy ships to Cuba.

The squadron's arrival next week is timed to coincide with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's trip to Venezuela and other Latin American nations. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, an unbridled critic of the U.S. policy, said his nation needs a strong friendship with Russia to reduce U.S. influence and keep the peace.

Some experts, though, question the military value of the exercise.

"The Kremlin is continuing its anti-American course in the 19th-century style," said Alexander Golts, an independent military analyst. "But it makes no sense militarily. A couple of ships struggling to make it to South America aren't going to strengthen Russia's posture against the United States."

Medvedev vowed in September that Russia will follow up on the Venezuelan cruise with other maneuvers worldwide. But its naval capability is limited.

"Russia simply lacks ships for the purpose," said Alexander Khramchikhin, a top analyst with Moscow-based Institute for Political and Military Analysis, an independent think tank.

He and other analysts say that the Peter the Great and its destroyer escort, the Admiral Chabanenko, are among a few vessels in the Russian navy capable of long ocean cruises.

Of all branches of the Russian military, the navy suffered most after the Soviet collapse. Sharp cuts in military spending left many Russian warships rusting berthside and forced the navy to scrap dozens of comparatively modern vessels.

Booming oil prices during President Vladimir Putin's eight-year tenure led to steady increases in military spending, allowing the navy to repair some vessels and train new crews. But the Russian navy is still a shadow of what it was in the Soviet era, when Moscow dispatched warships on regular patrols of the world's oceans.

"Most big surface warships which were built during the Soviet times have closely approached the end of their service time," Khramchikhin said. "It can't be extended indefinitely unless they want to see them sink in the middle of their cruise."