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Russia and Venezuela are heavily betting on a political movement this week, showing the world the tightening of military relations between the two countries. On Monday (10), two Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons landed at the Maiquetía airport in the Caracas region to conduct joint military maneuvers that, according to Venezuela, served to "prepare the defense". if necessary. ""
In addition to the two Tu-160 strategic bombers, an An-124 military transport aircraft and the Il-62 long-range airlifter of the Russian Aerospace Force were also sent The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the bombers remained in the Caribbean Sea for about ten hours and were accompanied by Venezuelan fighters at some point during the flight. they returned home.
TU-160 flying over the Caribbean
Military relations between Russia and Venezuela began in 2005, while Hugo Chávez was in his second term, and Venezuela was in a good economic phase thanks to oil export earnings .
"Between 2007 and 2011, Venezuela bought more than $ 12 billion worth of arms to Russia and Venezuela for the defense of artillery and air defense," said Arnaldo F. Cardoso , Professor of Commerce and International Relations at Presbyterian University. Mackenzie.
The joint maneuvers between the two nations are not new, they have already occurred on at least two other occasions. In September 2008, a fleet of the Russian Navy, including a nuclear-powered cruiser, was relocated to the Caribbean for joint military maneuver with the Venezuelan Navy. In the same month, Russia had already sent two Tu-160 bombers to this South American country – for the first time since the end of the cold war – that Russia was carrying out such operations in Latin America.
At the time, geopolitical badysts said that it was a reaction of Russia to the military presence of the United States and its allies in the United States. Organization of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) in the Black Sea, on the southern border of Russia. of the conflict involving South Ossetia, Georgia.
The current context is similar. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Harold Trinkunas, a Venezuelan expert from Stanford University, said that this was "probably a sign of support for the Maduro regime, while Russia and Venezuela are experiencing tensions. Increasingly "with the United States."
Steven Pifer, former United States Ambbadador to Ukraine and researcher at the Brookings Institution's Analysis Center, said in an interview with BBC World that "One of the reasons for sending bombers is to train Russian pilots on long-haul flights, another part is simply intended to irritate the United States."
Tensions between the Russia and the United States became more latent at the end of November, when the Russians seized Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait, a portion of water giving access to the Black Sea up to the end of November. the sea of Azov. is that Russia has annexed Crimea to its territory in 2014, relations with the Americans are getting worse, because of the various sanctions imposed by the White House in response to the Russian ground offensive.
For Dr. Paulo Wrobel, a specialist in international relations, this week's joint military exercises can be understood as an attitude of projection of Russian power in a region where the United States is the most influential foreign power. "Russia is basically a provocative military power," said Wrobel, who teaches international relations at PUC-Rio. "The country is not able to confront the United States militarily, but it causes neighbors, like Norway and Ukraine … Go test your patience."
View also: How is NATO preparing for the new cold war?
The joint military operation also shows that Venezuela has become a showcase for demonstrations and power struggles between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in front of the international community, as pointed out Cardoso. According to him, it ends up "also serving to increase its images [de Trump e Putin] in front of its voters".
#Russia plans to deploy full-time strategic bombers in reports #Venezuela @nezavisimaya_g . Currently, several Russian jets (2 Tu-160, An-124, IL-62) are exposed near Caracas in what has been seen as a symbolic support for Maduro. 1945 @DigitalGlobe https://t.co/oB8e5BNaMa image.twitter.com/HOZkCTcTpS
– Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) December 12, 2018
In Venezuela, the partnership with Russia is also an act of provocation in the White House and a way to show the international community that the country is not isolated despite the sanctions imposed by the United States.
"We must tell the Venezuelan people and the world that we are cooperating (with Russia) in various fields and that we are also preparing the defense of Venezuela until the last hand of the earth, if necessary", said the Venezuelan Minister of Defense. Godfather, when Russian planes landed in Caracas.
Nicolás Maduro is constructing a narrative that the country is about to be invaded by the United States and its allies who want to take it out of power. This week, he mentioned that a visit by Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, to Jair Bolsonaro, president-elect of Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro, sparked a plot to kill him and even to the murder. Maduro's story is old and reinforced by Trump's comments that he would not rule out a military intervention in Venezuela.
Missing the economy in tatters, the dictator asked for help from countries with opposite authoritarian characteristics in the United States, such as Russia, China, and Turkey, who recently promised to provide badistance to meet the essential needs of Venezuela despite starting to recover from a serious economic crisis.
But the trade relations of the Maduro and Putin countries do not go as well as military cooperation.
A report published in the Venezuelan El Nacional newspaper indicates that the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA is sending half the barrels of oil that it had agreed to pay for the country's external debt – from 300,000 barrels a day, only 150,000 are delivered, according to a source related to PDVSA, heard by the newspaper. The same thing would happen with the shipment of oil to China.
Nevertheless, in early December, Maduro announced that he had obtained support from Russia to increase oil production by one million barrels a day, as well as to invest in mining and maintenance of weapons and defense systems. Total investment, according to Maduro itself, would rise to $ 6 billion (R $ 23.4 billion).
Alcides Costa Vaz, Professor of International Relations at the University of Brasilia (UnB), however states that Russia is not seeking to establish a military partnership with the aim of selling arms to Venezuela, as this is the case. 39 is already produced in the Chavez government. "The bottom boils down to political and ideological convergences and the argument of resistance to the American invasion – Russia knows that Venezuela does not have the money to buy weapons of war."
The visit Russian bombers in Venezuela displeased the United States and the countries of the region. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the Russian government for sending "bombers from the other side of the world" to Venezuela.
"The Russian and Venezuelan peoples should see this as one: two corrupt governments that waste public resources and break freedom while their peoples are suffering," Pompeo wrote on Twitter.
Colombian President Iván Duque rejected military maneuvers, calling them disturbing, hostile and reckless acts towards the region. This is a reason to be on alert.
"We can not let ourselves be provoked, we can not let Venezuela start using this type of maneuver as a provocation tool, it is obvious that the continent must be alert," said Duque in an interview with the RCR television.
The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, goes even further and calls on international entities to verify whether Venezuela fulfills its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
Almagro wants the OAS arm against nuclear proliferation (Opbad) to verify that the country is complying with the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which guarantees the denuclearization of Latin America. the bodies that make up this agreement take the necessary measures to verify that Venezuela respects the rules of denuclearization and inform the OAS
For the professor of international relations of the University of Brasilia (UnB) and president of the 39 Association of Defense Studies, Alcides Costa Vaz, the question of whether the bomber carried a nuclear weapon is still relevant. more disturbing than the military exercise itself, which was not of great military significance. "I think it's unlikely that Venezuela stores nuclear weapons, but it's an open question," Vaz said, pointing out that the United States could use this information as an additional element of the repression against Venezuela, thus reinforcing the isolation of the population. socialist country.
Following OAS statements, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia issued a note stating that "the Russian Federation is strictly and strictly complying with its obligations under Additional Protocol II". of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco), which establishes legal safeguards that exclude the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons in relation to nuclear weapons. States of the zone.
Maduro also responded to the criticisms and said that planes from other countries would continue to land in Venezuela, according to Sputnik. "The planes are coming and they will arrive in the coming months", said Maduro
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