Caracas, December 4 (RHC)-- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro bestowed the Russian Ambassador in Venezuela Vladimir Zaemsky with the Order Francisco de Miranda, the country's highest honor, and bequeathed a replica of Simon Bolivar’s sword from the victorious battle of Carabobo, for a decade of work in the Latin American country.

From the Simon Bolivar room at the presidential Miraflores Palace, Maduro expressed that "it is a deep, historical relationship, from people to people and one government to another, the one that exists between Russia and Venezuela."

For Maduro "Russia and Venezuela maintain deep and close relations of friendship, strategic, political and diplomatic coincidence, closeness and permanent dialogue."

The Venezuelan head of state highlighted the historical relationship between the two nations, as well as Russia's role in the emergence of a multipolar world.  The head of state stressed that Russia has emerged as a great political, military, cultural and economic power alongside China. Both nations "have achieved the path of recovery, of alliance and brotherhood."

The Venezuelan president recalled that currently "Latin America is in dispute between maintaining its path of independence, sovereignty, and democracy or returning to the twentieth-century dictatorships and the control of U.S. imperialism over our region."

However, Maduro said he was sure that they would not be able to wrap the region's path to independence.  "Just as Venezuela, which has resisted this year, Latin America and the Caribbean will find its way to triumph along the path of independence and sovereignty," he added.