Four senior officers of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, from the Army and Navy components, have no doubt that Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine will have consequences for Venezuela. Some consider that this impact is in the military sphere, others believe that it is political, but there is no doubt that Nicolás Maduro’s manifest support for Vladimir Putin will affect the Caribbean country.
in conversation with InfobaeArmy Generals Juan Antonio Herrera Betancourt, Hebert Josué García Plaza and Guaicaipuro Lameda Montero, as well as Rear Admiral Carlos Rafael Molina Tamayo, revealed in which aspects the war event occurring on the other side of the world will affect Venezuela.
Retired Venezuelan Army General Juan Antonio Herrera Betancourt has no hesitation in describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “the expansionism of communism to position itself in territories that will allow it to achieve its objectives”as he told Infobae.
For the senior officer who was a senator of the Republic and a university professor, with a master’s degree in Political Science and commander of the Army’s Armored Brigade, Maduro’s support for Putin’s action “is recognizing and messing with that expansion policy. It is placing Venezuela in a situation of surrender to international communism without the support of Venezuelans, which will result in more pressure on its unconstitutional regime from the countries that reject the aggression against Ukraine, further weakening its position before the world, and increasing its disrepute.
An excuse for Colombia
Major General (Ex) Hebert Josué García Plaza, who was also Minister of Water Transport and Minister of Food, considers that the implications for Venezuela of the support that Nicolás Maduro gave to Russia “are from the military point of view, because The military apparatus that Venezuela has depends on maintenance, and on the Russia-Venezuela agreement, to basically keep them operational. Which is automatically going to be obstructed.”
“The maintenance of the weapons system that we have is constant and expensive. The first impact will be received by the National Armed Forces (FANB) and the other impact is from the point of view of security and defense”, said in dialogue with Infobae.
And he maintains that “NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was created to oppose the threat posed by Russia. Given the current action situation, Maduro says that the Venezuelan territory is practically ready to install this weapons system or Russian base, which is why it provides the pretext for Colombia to enter NATO and that is automatically a threat to Venezuela.”
“In addition, it ratifies that the decision of then President Barack Obama in 2015 to point out Maduro as a real threat to the Government of the United States, becomes more valid and that could mean additional sanctions against the Venezuelan economic apparatus that is already diminished.”
Maduro rushed
“I think that Nicolás Maduro hastened to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an invasion that is frowned upon by most countries in the world. Even in the United Nations Security Council, both India and China abstained, that is, they did not officially endorse Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”, said Rear Admiral Carlos Rafael Molina Tamayo. “To this we must add what we are seeing of the violation of Human Rights and the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes by the Russians; we saw the tank that hastily, and on purpose, went against a vehicle to crush it, that is a war crime that is obviously not justified; an innocent civilian who has been crushed, thank God the man who was in the car came out unharmed.
He told Infobae that “Maduro is rushing because he probably does not have a group that advises him to see the interest for his regime. “I think that Russia is going to come out of this situation very badly, because it has the global condemnation of all the world’s democracies, including the Latin American left that has condemned that invasion. Maduro, Nicaragua and Cuba are the puppets of the Castros and of Russia, which is why they always take a position in favor of committing these crimes and, in fact, of the Russian invasion.”
“The situation in Ukraine is very strong. From the reports I have, the Ukrainians are resisting, they are causing a lot of damage to the Russian forces and in the end Russian power is ten times that of Ukraine, so Russian domination will probably prevail, but the price will be very high,” Molina Tamayo warned.
And he added: “With all the sanctions that the European Union, the United States, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, etc., are beginning to impose, this will have consequences and Maduro will not be able to receive economic aid from Russia. On the other hand, Russia is going to be so busy that it will not even be able to continue providing military aid to the obsolete Russian equipment that Venezuela has.”
“A situation that we have also analyzed is that, as an exchange of this geopolitical chess, Probably the United States is going to say symmetrically: ‘If Russia doesn’t want people close to its border who belong to NATO, I don’t want Russian people and soldiers close to my country, in this case Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba’”.
“A scenario, probably remote but possible, is that the United States takes more action in the matter to remove Maduro from Venezuela. I wish that were the scenario and obviously that it would have the international support of the American continent”, Molina Tamayo asserted.
“The situation in Ukraine, regarding the Russian invasion, is very dynamic, very changing, and as we have said, it is costing Russia, even for the Russian people themselves, because we have seen the demonstrations and we do not know how expensive it is. This could cost Vladimir Putin, for whom the sanctions that are going to take effect in the medium and long term are already costing him dearly.”
In the opinion of Rear Admiral Tamayo “the consequences could even be, if it becomes a disaster, that the Russian people remove Putin, which would be the best scenario for Venezuela, which would be left without a great ally and the Maduro regime would feel weakened”. And he concluded: “Let’s pray that the Ukrainian forces manage to repel or cause a lot of damage to the Russian forces.”
win and win
General Guaicaipuro Lameda Montero is one of the men with the highest academic index who has passed through the Venezuelan Armed Forces. “When Hugo Chávez became president in 1999, he already had the intention of changing the geopolitical alignment of Venezuela; In the first phase of government, he was accompanied by the Patriotic Pole with radicals from the right and from the left. It was a time of unstable balances, but necessary to pay the bill to those who supported Chávez after his failed military coup of 4F “, he reviewed in conversation with Infobae.
“Chávez began a process of consolidating power in which only leftist factors offered him real opportunities to approach a people that was 80% impoverished and could count on growing oil income that allowed him to pay bills and get rid of the burden. of the center and right factors. In 2005 he openly announced his leftist orientation and the ties of alliance with China, Russia and Iran were consolidated, under the tutelage and Cuban advice that he already knew of love affairs, deceptions and disappointments suffered with the Soviet Union and the fall of the wall of Berlin”, he explained.
“In this process, Democratic Action (AD) and Copei, which are leftist parties, allowed themselves to be sold as the rancid right that promoted capitalism and neoliberal policies that impoverished the country. From then on, and when political power was consolidated in a single party that brought together the left under the threat: either they are with us or they are our enemiesthe geopolitical history of Venezuela is clear”.
“The supply of weapons traditionally made by the United States and Europe was cut off, the cooperation ties between Venezuela and the United States were broken, the assets of the oil industry in that country were liquidated and mortgaged, and the participation of more than 15,000 service stations was reduced to a minimum, ceding part of that space to Russian companies. Triangulation operations of money, weapons and other assets were carried out in which Russia, China, Cuba and Iran participated”he remembered.
“Channels financed with oil income are being opened to ensure this geopolitical shift,” he explained. “The energy cooperation agreement with the Caribbean countries and the particular one with Cuba were fundamental. At the time of high oil prices, Chávez ordered to keep money ‘under the mattress’ and thus accumulated some 400,000 million dollars that did not enter the national treasury and that are still placed in different places from where they strategically serve the revolution”.
“Last week it was realized that some USD 108,000 million flowed through a Swiss bank alone, mostly linked to PDVSA and a network of corruption that ties the hands of many interested people that this is not known or clarified. Thus we arrive at a Venezuela that is politically fractured into two sides and without the possibility of agreeing on a coherent position in its international position, ”he warned.
Lameda Montero considers that Venezuela is “a country with two presidents, two national assemblies, two courts of justice, with ambassadors who respond to one or the other political faction; but the real power is exercised by the revolution and its coalition with factors that at the international level appear linked to the legitimation of capital, drug trafficking, guerrillas and terrorism and in general the political movements that, with a left-wing orientation, agitate the world, even using reasons of race, religion and gender identity, among others”.
With this background, we value the relationship of Venezuela with respect to the situation generated between Russia and Ukraine, he explained to Infobae General Lameda Montero. “Venezuela and its two political factions have conflicting positions; some support Ukraine and others Russia, according to the interests that move and motivate them; the country is a stone guest”.
“However, being the revolution that exercises the real power, and having a pro-Russian geopolitical alignment, the government regime has no other option than to risk everything to support its current allies, with whom it maintains a dark and tangled network. of political, military, commercial and financial relations. Thus, the consequences for Venezuela will be the consequences that derive from the support that the government regime offers to Russia and its allies, and that will be none other than the strengthening of the revolution if Russia is successful in its purpose”, Lameda Montero stated.
“But if Russia were to be defeated in its purpose in Ukraine, that would not mean a victory or political strengthening for the opposition. This war between Russia and Ukraine, and internally for Venezuela, fits like a glove to the revolution that, in its power strategy, has established that it must maintain an enemy that allows it to agitate and maintain a permanent internal confrontation. The material consequences are irrelevant and any loss favors the revolution in its strategy of collective impoverishment as a means of domination to remain in the exercise of political power.. That is to say, the revolution has the country against a rock and a hard place: if they lose, they win, and if they win, they also win.”, General Guaicaipuro Lameda concluded.
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Source-www.infobae.com