Venezuela, located in South America, and its powerful ally Russia signed an intelligence and energy cooperation agreement on Thursday.
The agreement was signed when Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko visited Venezuela's capital, Caracas.
Russia is one of the few countries to recognize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's victory in the country's presidential election in late July. The United States and a number of Latin American countries consider opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia to have won the election.
Venezuela and Russia became closer to each other under the leadership of Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez in 1999–2013. Relations between the two countries have remained warm even during Maduro's presidency, and he has defended Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves and once produced three million barrels of oil per day. In recent years, Venezuela's oil production has fallen to around one million barrels per day, in part, due to sanctions imposed on the country.
Venezuela has approx 30 million inhabitants.