Late and with bad aim, but Moscow has already landed in the Caribbean crisis. “We support the leadership of Venezuela in the defense of its national sovereignty, taking into account the dynamics of the international and regional situation,” the Russian Foreign Ministry wrote on its social networks last Thursday.
Without a doubt, the most explicit support of the main international ally of the bolivarian revolutionwhich also added in the same message that “we are prepared to respond appropriately to our partners’ requests in light of emerging threats.”
It mattered little to Caracas that the Russians minutes later deleted the message on networks to change the Venezuelan map that accompanied the words. The Russian Foreign Ministry forgot to include the territory of Essequibo, in dispute with neighboring Guyana (a military ally of the US), a complete Chavista apostasy, which even forced a patriotic referendum and false regional elections to annex the territory exclusively on their maps.
With the error corrected, Maduro’s Foreign Ministry burst into joy: “We express our most sincere gratitude to the Government of Russia for its unwavering support in the defense of our sovereignty. Today, Russia and Venezuela are consolidated as strategic allies and we are ready to strengthen our cooperation in key areas of development and mutual progress.”
On the horns of a dilemma
Caught between the sword of war deployed by the US in the Caribbean and the wall of a society that for the most part waits with hope the fall of the dictatorshipMaduro knows that his greatest salvation lies on the geopolitical chessboard. This is what happened in 2019, when the challenge of the Presidency in charge of Juan Guaidó and its international allies, with Donald Trump at the helm, was wrecked in part by Moscow’s assistance in evading US sanctions and facilitating the smuggling of Venezuelan minerals. “There is a lot of symbolic reciprocity: if the US sends advisors to Ukraine, the Russians influence the US backyard,” the historian summarizes to EL MUNDO Armando Chaguaceda.
The Washington Post yesterday added new ingredients regarding the Russian landing in the Caribbean crisis. The capital newspaper revealed that Maduro had requested military aid from his three most powerful global allies, Russia, China and Iran. especially missiles, defensive radars and aircraft repairsChavismo is aware that the billions of dollars spent since the first trip of Hugo Chavez to Moscow have not served to build a good defensive system, deteriorated by the same crisis that the oil nation is suffering.
The Washington Postwhich has accessed Trump Administration documents, described on its pages how one of Maduro’s ministers traveled to Moscow last month to request Russian help to repair Sukhoi fighters. Military experts consulted by EL MUNDO assure that of the 25 Russian fighters in the hands of Chavismo, only four or five can fly at the same time, due to the lack of maintenance and the absence of specialized personnel. Maduro’s envoy also demanded logistical support from Moscow and at least 14 sets of missiles.
These efforts preceded the suspicious trip of the Russian Ilyushin 76 plane to Caracas and Managua, observed by radar experts who daily dissect everything that happens in Venezuelan and Caribbean skies.
“The I-76 freighter that made the trips to Caracas is a medium freighter, with limited capacity to transport equipment. In any case it could have carried portable anti-aircraft equipmentspare parts, perhaps some electronic warfare equipment, little else. A cargo ship of that type, with a couple of flights, cannot transport a quality and quantity of equipment that would make a difference in the face of a US attack,” Chaguaceda says.
The same secret mission took the Chavista minister Ramon Velasquez to China and Iran. In Beijing he requested radars and in Tehran, military equipment and drones with a range of a thousand kilometers. “The state of Venezuela’s air defense systems is, to say the least, suspicious. They have a single large battery of S-300 systems, like those destroyed by Israel when attacking Iran, of an older model, and the Buk missile systems, with shorter range, although the consistency of their radars is questioned. They also have the Pechora anti-aircraft systems, which are a little older and shorter range. All of this does not make a difference: they are systems exactly the same as those Iran had before the Israeli attacksand they couldn’t shoot down any plane,” adds Chaguaceda.
The Russian landing comes at a critical moment for Maduro, who appeared on Friday looking haggard and haggard at the Miraflores Palace in the face of rumors, coming from Washington, of the launch of attacks against continental targets. “Whatever the threat, you always have to have nerves of steel, calm and sanity and maximum unified action,” rambled the “son of Chávez” 15 months after starring in the biggest megafraude electoral of the history of Latin America. “After this macabre offensive and the imperial perversity of these last few weeks, our people have reinvented themselves. The rancid oligarchies want to take away their power from the people,” the fraudulent president tried to explain as if he were talking about himself.
The imminence of the first attack, as the Maduro Government believes, has placed diplomatic relations with the neighbor Treat on the brink of rupture, after the arrival on its shores of the destructor USS Gravely and a detachment of Marines. The warship left the Caribbean island, but its authorities have ordered the quartering of the armed forces, all just 11 kilometers from the Venezuelan coast.
Upon deployment of seven warshipsand nuclear powered submarine y 10,000 menIn addition to the F-35s and drones located in nearby Puerto Rico and the elite Marine units, the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, the most powerful in the US Navy, will be added in the coming days.
“On the repositioning of Russia, Maduro is going to grasp at straws to try to present it as a victory. But the reality is that in technical, geopolitical and operational terms There is no possibility that he will receive relevant reinforcements right now to change the balance of forces.“says Chaguaceda, the main regional expert on revolutions.