Русский
Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has discussed cooperation and the global agenda during his meeting with the Ambassadors of diplomatic missions of the Latin American and Caribbean countries in Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday (May 7).
The Ministry stated that meeting involved a “deepened exchange of views on the current state of Russian-Latin American relations in the political, trade and economic, and cultural and humanitarian spheres. Special emphasis was made on the promising areas of cooperation and successful examples of the wide-ranging interaction in bilateral format and on international platforms. During an exchange of views on a wide range of issues concerning the current situation in the Western Hemisphere and globally on the whole, a number of aspects of the regional and global agendas were considered through the prism of the present world order’s transformation in the direction of multipolarity, with the Latin American region’s increasing role as one of its pillars.”
During the meeting, attendees stressed the imperative need to collectively uphold the norms and principles of international law, including the UN Charter, in their entirety and interconnectedness.
The meeting will have pressed home Russia’s intended developments and relations within the LatAm region and will presumably have not only focused on coordination within the United Nations, but regional issues such as the strange state of affairs Cuba finds itself in – sanctioned by the United States and threatened by it, with supplies of required medicines, food, energy and other critical supplies created by a de facto US blockade of the country – which has a population of about ten million – now causing serious humanitarian and welfare problems in the country.
How the US is likely to react if other LatAm countries breach the Cuba blockade – and with Russia being so distant and involved in its own conflict and sanctions – will have been a major point of discussion.
Russia’s overall trade with Latin America has made significant economic strides, with trade turnover with Latin America increasing from US$5.6 billion in 2000 to US$20.8 billion in 2021. Russian banks have provided loans to countries in the region, and companies with Russian capital have invested primarily in the oil and mining sectors, also winning tenders for infrastructure projects. Russia-LatAm trade grew by 6.3% in 2025 and is currently worth about US$25 billion.
