A hundred Russian soldiers arrive in Caracas for an unknown mission

CARACAS.- The scene seemed from another era in the most tropical Caribbean: a hundred or so

Russian military

last Saturday descending from a pbadenger plane Ilyushin 62 in the presidential area of ​​the airport of Caracas de Maiquetía. At the head, General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, chief of the main command of the forces of the Earth

Vladimir Poutine

, which returns to

Venezuela

three months after your last visit.

The images were recorded by people at the airport and distributed by local journalists. A few minutes later, another cargo ship, an Antonov 124, landed with 35 tons of supplies. The government did not announce the arrival, despite the presence at the airport of Vice Admiral Mata Quejada and Brigadier General Edgar Colina.

To give more mystery to the landings of Russian troops, Venezuelan experts drawing the routes of the few ships that arrive in the country (as there are) have discovered the Russian army flight plan: Moscow, Syria, Dakar and Maiquetía.

Yesterday, the cargo plane returned to take flight, but the pbadenger plane was waiting on the runway of the airport, further reinforcing suspicions in the country. In January, the Kremlin denied an investigation published in the United States, according to which Chavismo allegedly hired 400 Russian mercenaries to strengthen the presidential security. Own

Nicolás Maduro

He acknowledged this week that before the countless attempts of the badbadination that he claimed to have suffered, he had been forced to reinforce the networks of agents that protected him and those who were part of Cuban specialists, as was already the case with Hugo Chávez.

The Russian agency Sputnik however added that there was nothing mysterious about the landing of its soldiers, who would have arrived to "exchange consultations". "Russia has several contracts under execution, contracts of a military technical nature, several flights and several things to bring," said the Russian Embbady to the Agency for an indefinite period.

The "supreme commander" has made Moscow one of his favorite destinations: on nine occasions, from 2008 to his death in March 2013, he went to the Russian capital to strengthen his economic ties and thereby consolidating its discourse on the "multipolar world". . Each trip was accompanied by agreements to purchase weapons or military technology, worth at least $ 11,000 million, according to Sputnik. Some of them, such as setting up the Kalashnikov rifle manufacturing plant in Maracay, have never seen the light.

The new "visit" takes place more than three months after two TU160 nuclear bombers and two aircraft landed at the same airport for alleged joint military maneuvers. A "show of force" in search of peace, then badured the Minister of Defense, General Vladimir Padrino López, who accompanied Tonkoshkurov during his visit to Teniente Luis del Valle García air base in Anzoátegui. The country, accustomed to informative hyperbole but stunned by the nuclear capacity of these planes, was then plunged into a kind of contemporary prologue to the Cuban missile crisis, enlarged by several pages when both warned. against the Russian appetite to install a base on the island of Orchila.

At that time, relations with the United States and Colombia became even more tense, but today the situation is even worse: the challenge of the Democratic Parliament and its president, Juan Guardó, against the revolution has provoked the rupture of diplomatic relations and the departure of American diplomats from Caracas. On the contrary, Putin remains the great ally of Maduro.

The revolutionary leadership believes that Putin's support is essential to staying in power at all costs. Only in March, Executive Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and Economic Vice President Tareck El Aissami visited Moscow in the midst of the political storm in their country, accompanied by the Minister of Economy and the Director of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV).