Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has thanked his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for his cooperation and medical aid amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Putin also "guaranteed new shipments of health supplies" to Venezuela and expressed a "greater" need of joint efforts between two countries, to handle the pandemic, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said.
"Both leaders condemned the continued illegal and inhumane unilateral coercive measures during times so difficult for humanity," it added.
Maduro and Putin also discussed the situation in the oil market and recent agreement of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. They agreed to fully support the OPEC + mechanism, which will be effective from May 1.
OPEC and its allies reached a final agreement on April 12 to cut their collective oil production by a record level of 10 million barrels per day starting from next month to balance the oil market.
Although the tally of coronavirus-related cases and deaths in Venezuela is not as alarming as the rest of the world, the country has been in precipitous decline following a global downturn in the price of crude oil, the country's main export item.
Due to dire economic crisis and political crisis between Maduro and the opposition leader Juan Guaido - since the beginning of 2019, already nearly five million Venezuelans fled their homeland.
Venezuela has 256 coronavirus cases and nine fatalities, with 117 recoveries so far.
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