Russia pledges to expand energy ties with Vietnam

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev met his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday during a state trip to Hanoi.While details of the talks were sparse, both sides said they hoped to expand co-operation in the energy sector, with Medvedev saying that he expects state oil and natural gas firms Gazprom, Rosneft and Zarubezhneft to expand operations.Rosneft is currently drilling in the South China Sea in a joint venture with Vietnamese state oil firm PetroVietnam in waters contested by Vietnam and China, although Rosneft maintains it is staying within Vietnamese territorial waters.Both sides also agreed to hold a Year of Russia and Year of Vietnam in their respective countries.“Our people are genuinely interested in each other, each other’s history, and are eager to get to know each other better,” said Medvedev.The trip comes a year after President Vladimir Putin visited Vietnam for the 2017 Apec summit in Da Nang.Medvedev last visited Vietnam in 2015, while Putin’s last official state visit to Hanoi was in 2013.Moscow was Hanoi’s principle ally in the 1970s and 80s, with the Soviet Union providing key support to Vietnam as the US and China refused to recognise the South-East Asian country in the later years of the Cold War.Although ties were downsized when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Vietnamese military still imports most of its weaponry from Russia.