Where is all this going? Do you envision a more aggressive foreign policy in Russia with renewed interests/ties in the Western Hemisphere with countries like Cuba and perhaps Venezuela ?

Mr. Putin focused on the edge of the old Soviet empire — what he saw as improper encroachment by the United States and its NATO allies in countries that were once under Moscow’s sphere of influence.
That is why the Kremlin has paid so much attention to events in Georgia, Poland and the Czech Republic.
I don’t think that he was especially interested in Cuba or Venezuela, except perhaps to get a little under Washington’s skin.
It seems to me that Mr. Putin is more pragmatic than his Soviet predecessors, who were driven much more by ideology (spreading the Communist system). Cuba doesn’t have a lot to offer the Kremlin these days.