LATIN AMERICA AND RUSSIA: COLLABORATION AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

At the end of the first and early second decades of this century, the relations of the Russian Federation with a number of Latin American countries became increasingly defined by the term strategic partnership, which was enshrined in bilateral interstate documents and was intended to articulate the new, more advanced nature of Russian-Latin American cooperation in the international arena. By raising their relations to a strategic level, the parties tend to assume that their growing political and economic interactions are based on the proximity (or coincidence) of basic, fundamental national interests, and that partners face similar and interconnected challenges that critically require a favorable international climate, a stable and calm world. Formulating the essence of the strategic partnership is an extremely succinct mode, it can be stated that this is an interstate cooperation, which without rigid allied ties and uncomfortable mutual obligations provides partners with the opportunity to join forces for the successful solution of really important domestic and international problems. The coronavirus pandemic, which engulfed both Russia and Latin America in 2020, demonstrated the need for a decisive deepening of Russian-Latin American cooperation in the field of scientific and technical development and co-production of vaccines in quantities that can protect the entire population of the region. This requires effective cooperation between national health systems institutions, research centers and laboratories, and regular exchanges of well-established medical and epidemiological practices. Joint efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic can and should be the starting point of a new political time in relations between Russia and Latin America.