Politics

Venezuela’s Maduro backs ‘powerful military cooperation’ with Russia

Caracas, Feb 16 (EFE).- Venezuela is on “the path of powerful military cooperation” with Russia and supports Moscow against threats from NATO and the West, its president said on Wednesday.

“We have ratified the path of powerful military cooperation between Russia and Venezuela for the defense of peace, sovereignty, territorial integrity,” Nicolás Maduro said in a statement at Miraflores presidential palace after a meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov.

“We are going to expand all the preparation, training, cooperation plans with a military power of the world such as Russia. Our ties are deep and historic,” he stressed.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and the top staff have “clear instructions,” Maduro added, without elaborating.

“Russia has the full support of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the fight it is putting up to dispel threats from NATO and the Western world. Russia has Venezuela’s full support to dispel all threats and for Russia to remain a land of peace,” he said.

In an interview in January with Russian TV channel RTVI, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov had not ruled out the deployment of military infrastructure in Cuba and Venezuela.

When asked whether Moscow was considering the possibility of deploying its military infrastructure in Venezuela or Cuba, Ryabkov replied that he did not want “to confirm anything” but would also “rule out nothing” in this regard.

Following their meeting on Wednesday, neither Maduro nor Borisov referred to that statement nor its implication on the ground.

Instead, the Venezuelan president said that “another world is possible,” a “multipolar” and “multicentric” one, in which there are no “hegemonic empires.” EFE

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