Risk society: cold war and fashionable companies, the Russian agenda in Caracas

Military and antiaircraft defenses sold by Moscow and commercial operations consolidate the alliance between Vladimir Putin and Nicolás Maduro; In addition, Chavismo is the largest regional receiver of funds in China.

CARACAS.- The newspapers of the time tell us that the Cuban people came out of Malecon hatred in Havana to shout this Caribbean story of "Nikita, ladybug!", After the peaceful resolution of the missile crisis. The last-minute pact between Presidents Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy did not like

Fidel Castro

, although history has shown that it was one of its great beneficiaries.

The presence of the Russian army in

Venezuela

, the development of antiaircraft defenses (sold by Moscow) in the State of Guárico, near Caracas, and the absolute support of

Vladimir Poutine

a

Nicolás Maduro

during the Democratic Parliament's challenge to the revolution, including an obvious attempt to

United States

reactivated in the region the memories of the cold war. And that's what happened to Venezuelan chess

Putin

His masterpieces are not only Cuban, Ukrainian and Syrian.

"The military will remain as long as necessary and as long as the government needs it," said the Russian Foreign Ministry yesterday, which immediately received a response from the White House.

"We have strongly warned outside actors in the Western Hemisphere (Russia) against the deployment of military badets in Venezuela to set up or expand military operations," warned John Bolton. , National Security Advisor, to close two weeks and it started with the landing of two Russian planes at Caracas airport in Maiquetía.

The relations between Venezuela and Russia, launched during the last decade by Hugo Chávez and Putin, are based today on a triple axis: military alliance, economic support and geostrategic game. On the eve of the presidential elections in Ukraine, the Russian Sputnik agency highlighted the two words chosen by Professor Alexandr Kubishkin, of the St. Petersburg State University, to define the presence of his country in Venezuela: a deterrent. "Trump said that Venezuela is a sphere of US influence, Ukraine is the sphere of influence of Russia, but US politicians and military are actively involved in the situation in Ukraine," explained the specialist.

"The goal of this ancestral game of penetrating influences of the rival powers is to strengthen the ability of action and negotiation of the international system, which is particularly important and urgent for Russia because it This is a great decadent power, "he said.
THE NATION Víctor Mijares, professor of Venezuelan political science at the University of Los Andes, Colombia.

The scenario chosen today for the tussle between the superpowers, even if one of them is inferior, is the worst possible: a Venezuela between collapses and flight, which aspires to a change that the revolution does not allow and whose social and economic collapse is an imbalance factor for the whole continent. According to Forbes magazine, Russia replicates its strategy in Syria to avoid regime change in Venezuela.

"The Russians are in Venezuela to show their strength and prove that they are powerful and able to confront the United States, which Donald Trump's policy facilitates." Given the economic situation in Russia, a military deployment in conditions would give them an eye of the face and they are not in state ", qualifies in the dialogue with
THE NATION Carlos Malamud, Principal Investigator for Latin America of the Royal Institute for Strategic and International Studies of Elcano, Spain.

For Mijares, we are not facing a new missile crisis but it is part of the same phenomenon of rivalry between powers. Malamud does not believe in a reissue of what he has lived in Cuba, even though it is clear that the Russian presence is for Maduro "some guarantee of survival", as it was already the case for Castro.

While thinkers and researchers badyzed all the Russian movements in the Caribbean, the military leaders of the revolution inaugurated a simulation center for helicopters made in Russia and promised the launch of a new stage for them. train with the famous Sukhoi fighters. The Kalashnikov rifle factory is still on hold and, like almost all of Chávez's major projects, celebrates its 10th anniversary in limbo.

All these movements have confirmed to Western strategists that the hundred Russian soldiers who arrived in Caracas last Saturday had the main objective to review the S-300 anti-aircraft system in El Sombrero (Guárico), in principle one of the best defense systems of the region. It has already been successfully tested in Syria.

But they have also hidden a secret mission, according to researcher Joseph Humire of the Center for a Free and Secure Society: "Its cybernetic technicians are trying to manage the opinion matrix, more than 60% of the media reporting the intervention Presumed US military.The United States are Russian, Iranian, Cuban and Venezuelan sources.They want to arouse the hope of an invasion of the Venezuelan people and sow despair, they play with their psychology. "

Venezuelan society is a torrent of emotions that jumps in a few minutes from the strongest hope to the deepest depression. The last example is that of power outages which, instead of stirring protest cries, sank their expectations.

In addition to being one of their best customers to sell their weapons, the Russians also lent $ 17,000 million to Venezuela, just behind China – the largest creditor – through its companies oil. "The giant Rosneft has helped to circumvent some of the sanctions imposed by the United States, but the oil sector is not viable today, it has no future, the model does not allow it and it is what the Russians understand. " Oil if there is no electric power? A lot of the oil fields have been paralyzed because they have no energy, "says Henkel García, director of Econometric.

In addition to oil and natural gas, where Rosneft has had a mining permit for three decades, the Venezuelan mining arc contains other treasures for the Russians: gold, diamonds, coltan and thorium. Caracas sells gold and diamond from its mines and reserves to Turks, Arabs, Africans and Russians in search of monetary liquidity, a turning point for its allies.

Venezuela also has abundant supplies of thorium, named after the god Thor, which explains its power.

Among the largest consumers of thorium on the planet, whether for reactors or submarines, are Russia and China, which are building state-of-the-art power plants with this "cleaner" nuclear fuel than # 39; uranium.