Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived in Cuba Thursday to revive ties with the former Soviet Union's Cold War ally, on the last leg of a tour to boost Russia's reach in Latin America.
Medvedev was due to meet Cuban President Raul Castro, 77, and visit a new Russian-Orthodox cathedral in Havana on the last stop in a four-nation trip, including Peru, Brazil and Venezuela, where he visited Russian warships due to carry out joint maneuvers next week.
It was unclear whether Medvedev, on the first visit by a Russian leader to Cuba since 2000, would also meet ailing former president Fidel Castro, 82.
Medvedev's Latin America tour primarily sought to boost trade, despite the world economic slow-down, but was also seen as a rebuff to US moves in formally Communist-ruled parts of Europe, such as planned missile defense facilities.
The Russian leader arrived from Venezuela, where he signed a string of accords, including a nuclear energy deal, with anti-US President Hugo Chavez.
Medvedev is only the second Russian president to travel to Cuba after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, which led to a decade of distant relations broken by a visit by former president Vladimir Putin in 2000.
But Putin's decision to close a Russian spy base in Lourdes, south of Havana, in 2001, created a new chill in relations that lasted until 2007, when Moscow showed a new interest in Latin America.
Medvedev's visit follows an accelerated process of reconciliation, including new deals on military, energy, telecommunications and transport ties.
"Cuba has been and will continue to be one of our key partners in Latin America," Medvedev said after hosting Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque in Russia this month.
"Relations are developing in a very dynamic way," Medvedev said on announcing a planned trip by Raul Castro to Russia in 2009.
The Russian ambassador said Saturday that the country was negotiating major investments in Cuba's oil and nickel industries, with deals under consideration with specific Russian firms to search for oil offshore in Cuba's exclusive economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
Medvedev's visit came as it emerged that Raul Castro -- who does not give many detailed interviews even to Cuba's state-run media -- gave a rare seven-hour interview with the US magazine The Nation.
The interview with the Cuban president was a journalistic coup for actor and activist Sean Penn; it appeared in a Nation article titled "Conversations with Chavez and Castro," and included a recent visit with key Cuban ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez told Penn: "Fidel is a communist. I am not. I am a social democrat."
Raul Castro told Penn of US president elect Barack Obama "We should meet in a neutral place. Perhaps we could meet at Guantanamo. We must meet and begin to solve our problems," said in reply to Penn's questions on the possibility of an historic meeting between the two.
"At the end of the meeting, we could give the president a gift ... We could send him home with the American flag that waves over Guantanamo Bay," Raul Castro joked of the Cuban territory the US occupies against Havana's wishes.
Earlier this month, Russia granted Cuba a 20-million-dollar trade credit as part of agreements on oil, mining and transport, during a visit by Russian deputy premier Igor Sechin.
In a Russian drive in the region after an Asia-Pacific summit in Peru earlier this month, Medvedev also visited Brazil, and his foreign minister, Serguei Lavrov, stopped off in Colombia and Ecuador.
Russia sees Latin America as a "center of economic growth," Lavrov said Thursday in Quito.
Medvedev's visit to Cuba follows a trip by Chinese President Hu Jintao, who put off some of Cuba's debt payments and agreed to cooperation deals to strengthen ties between the two communist nations.
