I know that the Russians have had their pay, morale, and maintenance issues since the break up of the Soviet Union. I dont know the current state of their fleet, but back in the 80's they were some of the finest sailors i have ever encountered. I believe it has something to do with the way they trained. Whereas in most western navies a sailor gets to move from ship to ship, roughly every two years, and job to job, thereby making him inherently flexible, but not necessarily excellent at one particular task, in the Soviet navy a sailor joined a ship, and stayed with that ship for his entire naval career. This made him far less flexible, but far more experienced at the job he was assigned top. if your job was firing torpedoes, thats all you learnt, but you got very good at that one job....
This is a message for the South Americans...."we are back, and we can sail ships again" Its a russian version of the "great white fleet" designed to shock an awe, impress the natives, and win sales of hardware, and show off what great friends the Russians can be against those nasty, nasty Americans