All right, Alexander, let's discuss Lavrov's trip to South America.

Hasn't been covered too much in the collective West media, but an important trip from the Russian foreign minister.

What are your thoughts?

Absolutely.

Well, first of all, I mean, he's in, he's visited

some interesting countries. He's visited Cuba and he's visited Venezuela. Now, these are two friends

of Russia's, traditional friends of Russia's. But perhaps the more interesting of those two trips, in some

respects, I think, again, is the trip to Cuba. Cuba's been going through many economic

problems, as we've all known. The Russians last year started to reinvest in Cuba in a very, very big way.

Lavrov primarily went to Cuba to say that Cuba is going to start receiving Russian oil,

Russian oil shipments.

We are looking essentially at a situation where Cuba is, the Cuban-Russian relationship,

is being re-established to basically where it was,

you know, the heyday of the Soviet Union

when the Soviets were basically very closely integrated with Cuba.

And I think that at some point, if this relationship

continues to develop in the way that it is, it is not impossible. In fact, it's highly likely

that Cuba will apply to join the Briggs. I'm just So, I mean, that that is an interesting, interesting

visit. Venezuela was interesting because obviously the Russians have good relations with Venezuela.

There was some talk at one point that Maduro might be inching towards some kind of reconciliation

with the Biden administration.

I never took that very seriously myself.

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