Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Argentina today on a tour aimed at tapping Latin American natural resources and increasing Moscow's regional influence amid a post-Cold War low in East-West relations.
Putin said ahead of his visit he was keen to offer increased Russian investment and trade in exchange for oil and minerals, and analysts say he likely has his eye on Argentina's massive Vaca Muerta shale oil field, potentially one of the largest finds in history.
Argentine President Cristina Kirchner for her part could desperately use Russian investment at a time when her government is fighting to stay solvent, locked out of capital markets since defaulting on its debt in 2001.
Kirchner will be looking to enlist Putin's backing for her fight against hedge funds refusing to accept the restructuring of the country's defaulted debt.
A US court has ordered Argentina to pay the "holdout" funds more than USD 1.3 billion by the end of the month, but the country is trying to negotiate a reprieve.
Putin's push to court Latin American leaders comes as the United States is threatening new sanctions against Moscow for its takeover of Crimea and support for pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.
Putin and Kirchner will meet in the afternoon at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, but neither side announced details.
Argentina said a dinner was planned with Bolivian President Evo Morales, as well as the leaders of Uruguay and Venezuela, Jose Mujica and Nicolas Maduro, all veteran leftists. But only Uruguay confirmed its head of state would attend.
Putin's six-day trip will next take him to Brazil, where he will take part in a summit of the BRICS group of emerging countries -- an agenda that neatly aligns with his push for a multipolar world at a time when the Ukraine crisis has dramatically increased tensions between Moscow and Washington.
There were distinct Cold War echoes in the former KGB spy's travel itinerary.
He launched his tour yesterday in Russia's Cold War ally Cuba, where he met with President Raul Castro and his 87-year-old brother Fidel, father of the island's communist revolution, and visited a small cemetery that holds the remains of Soviet soldiers who died while stationed on the island during the Cold War.
He then made a surprise stop in Nicaragua for talks with President Daniel Ortega, a former guerrilla whose government was close to the Soviet Union during the Sandinista regime of the 1980s.
