EXPANDED MILITARY-TECHNICAL COOPERATION WITH LATIN AMERICA.

Russia plans to considerably expand its military-technical cooperation with South American nations, particularly Brazil, the press service of the state-owned Rosvooruzhenie company told Interfax yesterday. Last year Brazil bought over $3 million worth of portable Needle anti-aircraft complexes. A delegation from Brazil is currently working in Russia, discussing military-technical deals such as the purchases of Mi-17 helicopters to combat drug trafficking in the Amazon basin, and other weapons systems, including advanced armored vehicles. (4)

Until its collapse in 1991, the Soviet Union exported arms worth an average $14 billion a year. Though it inherited more than half the Soviet Union’s arms-producing enterprises, last year Russia earned only about $1.7 billion from arms sales. This year it intends to up that figure to at least $2.5 – 2.6 billion.

FSB Warns of Chechen Terrorism.