Putin Receives Raul at the Kremlin

HAVANA, Cuba, May 8 (acn) The Russian head of state, Vladimir Putin, received Cuban President Raul Castro with a big hug at the Kremlin on Thursday and thanked him for traveling to Moscow to participate in the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism, which will take place on Saturday at Red Square.
Putin said he remembered "with affection" his last visit to Cuba, in 2014. In addition, he described Russia's diplomatic relations with the island as historic and long, which on Friday will mark the 55th anniversary of their reestablishment, he pointed out.
Meanwhile, the Army General, who entered the room seconds before Putin and greeted in Russian reporters gathered there, thanked the host president for the gesture of inviting him in a date as historic as "the great victory of the peoples of the former Soviet Union."
He reiterated that it was impossible not to be present at the celebrations and commented on activities being under way in Cuba to honor such significant event. In particular, he mentioned the presence in Havana these days of the president of the State Duma, Sergei Naryshkin.
In addition, he referred to Putin's visit to Cuba in July last year and to the important agreements signed on that occasion to boost bilateral relations, in such diverse areas as culture, industry, health, international security of information, commerce, and the preparedness for natural disasters, among others.
After these statements to journalists, which were immediately reported on by the media, Raul and Putin, along with their respective delegations, met in private.
At the end of the meeting, Raul gave the Russian leader a work by Cuban artist Alexis Leyva Machado (Kcho) -an old PPSH rifle (known as pepecha) with roses at the tip and that at the base, on three bullet discs, reads: "The Soviet victory over fascism is the foundation of the new Russia."
On Friday, the Army General plans to greet Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, as he did during the official visit made in 2009.