Russia has strengthened its support for the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro with the signing of a dozen agreements

Russia on Tuesday strengthened its support for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro with the signing of a dozen cooperation agreements in the areas of food, finance, energy, military, science, technology and mining.. He also renewed his commitment to support the South American country in the field of health, which would involve increasing the supply of vaccines to fight against the new coronavirus.

Russia, along with China, is a staunch ally of the Venezuelan regime amid the country’s economic crisis, and despite UN complaints of human rights violations and sanctions imposed by states- United in an attempt to prevent it from the Chavist dictatorship can carry out financial and commercial transactions abroad, access international assets in Venezuela and carry out operations with oil, gold or others.

The agreements were signed by the Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Yuri Borisov, and the Sectorial Vice President for Economic Area and Minister of Petroleum of Venezuela, Tareck El Aissami.

The agreements “demonstrate the vitality of global relations” between the two countriesMaduro said in a speech at the end of the Russia-Venezuela High Level Commission meeting, which was held at the Government Palace in Caracas.

Authorities did not give details of most of the signed agreements, however, Maduro thanked “Russia’s commitment to increase the supply of Sputnik V vaccine.”

Venezuela – which has a population of around 30 million – has been part of Sputnik V vaccine trials since October.

Previously, Borisov announced that Russia will “ensure” the vaccination of Venezuelans and do “everything possible” to increase supplies of the Sputnik V vaccine., without giving further details.

Maduro’s administration signed a contract with Moscow in December to provide the inoculation, and on February 13, the first batch of 100,000 doses arrived. Since then, 250,000 of the 10 million initially agreed have arrived. Maduro said his government had invested $ 200 million in these vaccines and predicted weeks ago that they should be in the country by April., when he predicts that Venezuela will be able to deploy a mass vaccination campaign.

Venezuela also received on March 1 a batch of 500,000 doses from the Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm which were donated by the Asian giant.or. It is not known if there is a supply agreement between Caracas and Beijing.

On the other hand, fifteen other health workers died in Venezuela because of COVID-19 between the 26 and the 28 of this month, bringing to 408 the total number of medical personnel who died of this disease, indicated on Monday the NGO Médicos. Unidos who has been warning of the increase in such deaths in a similar period.

“Information is being received on 15 new health worker deaths with criteria for COVID-19 to reach 408, while official spokespersons report a total of 1,565 deaths in the country. Our lives depend on a vaccine and you protect yourselfThe NGO said in a message on Twitter.

Among the deceased are eight surgeons identified as Lamberto Piñero, José Ramos, Julio Hidalgo, Cesar Uret, José Julián Bello, Raúl Mendoza, Oscar Bastidas, Eugenio Cordido.

In Venezuela – where the coronavirus hasn’t hit as hard as in other South American countries – there are more than 159,100 positive cases and 1,583 deaths.

In addition, the government of US President Joe Biden condemned on Tuesday the constant abuses and violations of human rights committed by the dictatorship of Maduro against the opposition and the Venezuelan population. The State Department denounced the role of the regime’s security forces and paramilitary groups – such as the Chavist collectives – in implementing the plan of repression and persecution.

“Members of the security forces committed numerous abuses, and a UN report concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that government authorities and security forces had committed crimes against humanity.” the State Department said in a report. of human rights in Venezuela in the year 2020.

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