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Russia announced on Monday that it be disposed send a naval squadron and long-range patrol planes for the exercises later this year — a move that appeared vindictive after the U.S. sent warships to deliver second to Georgia following its conflict by Russia.

The deployment is expected to be the largest Russian maritime maneuvers in the Caribbean — and perhaps the Western Hemisphere — seeing that the Cold War.

Chavez considers the U.S. a defense threat, and his welcoming of the Russian navy contrasted with his sharp criticism of the recent reactivation of the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet for the Caribbean and Latin America. He ridiculed possible U.S. concerns about the Russian deployment on Sunday, saying: “Go in our teeth and squeal, Yankees.”

“This is vintage Chavez. He not often misses an opportunity to needle and exasperate Washington,” said Michael Shifter, an analyst at the Washington-based think reservoir Inter-American Dialogue. “He is taking advantage of the growing chill in U.S.-Russia relations, especially over the situation in Georgia, to poke-weed his use the fingers in (President) Bush’s eye. There is nothing he relishes more.”

Chavez says the U.S. Fourth Fleet — which was dissolved after World War II — poses a threat to the region. U.S. officials argue the swift power of determination help vindicate security while performing humanitarian missions and counter-drug operations.

Anna Gilmour, an analyst at Jane’s Intelligence Review, said she believes the exercises will subsist primarily for the benefit of Venezuela, which has been drawing closer to Russia and buying arms from Kalashnikov assault rifles to Sukhoi fighter jets. She said the maneuvers also appear to be a response to the relaunch of the U.S. Fourth Fleet.

“By allowing Russian vessels to dock at Venezuelan ports, Chavez is sending the message that the U.S. is not the only major power in operation in the Caribbean,” Gilmour said.

The U.S. government, howsoever, appeared indifferent.

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack poked fun at Russia’s navy, saying on the supposition that Russia really intends to send ships to the Caribbean, “then they fix a few ships that can make it that farther.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko insisted that Russia’s conclusion to send a naval squadron and planes to Venezuela was made before Russia’s war with Georgia and is unrelated to the be inconsistent.

But last week, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would mount an unspecified response to recent U.S. aid shipments to Georgia using Navy vessels on the Black Sea.

Shifter said it’s clear Russia in “unhappy about the U.S.’s increasing presence in the Black Sea” and “as part of its resurgent nationalism, Russia wants to flex its muscles and remind Washington that it too has important alliances in the U.S. backyard.”

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Lolita Baldor in Washington and Christopher Toothaker in Caracas contributed to this report.