During a ceremony held at the university's main hall, UH's President Miriam Nicado acknowledged Medvedev's defense of the Russia-Cuba strategic alliance and support for Cuba amid the island's continuous dispute with the United States.

Nicado praised Medvedev's development of a plan to modernize the Russian economy and society, his contribution to diminishing Russia's reliance on oil and gas revenues, and his involvement in creating a diversified economy based on technological progress.

Medvedev said that Latin America is "a key region for collaboration, not a backyard, as the United States believes."

The Russian prime minister called for building a multipolar world and denounced attempts to replace international standards with rules made up by some countries.

He said that Russia would not accept the imposition of sanctions and other coercive measures in general in the international arena against some 70 nations like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba and Russia itself.

Later on Friday, Medvedev presided over the inauguration ceremony of a joint oil well recovery project in Boca de Jaruco, a small fishing village some 40 km east of Havana.

The project, a result of joint efforts by Russian oil company Zarubezhneft and Cuban state-run oil company CUPET, is Cuba's first horizontal drilling oil well.