| Expanding on the tweet posted yesterday. |
The aircraft was seen at Maiquetia airport outside Caracas guarded by a contingent of Venezuelan National Guardsmen.
Javier Mayorca, an independent journalist, reported on his twitter account the arrival of two Russian panes -- an Antonov-124 cargo plane and a smaller jet -- late Saturday at the airport.
He said around 100 Russian soldiers led by General Vasily Tonkoshkurov, head of the Mobilization Directorate of Russia's armed forces, disembarked along with about 35 tons of equipment.
A picture of a Russian flagged aircraft posted on social media showed men in uniform clustered around it on the tarmac.
There was no confirmation from Venezuelan authorities, and the Russian embassy in Caracas declined to comment to AFP on the report, which was widely carried by Venezuelan media.
Russia and China are the main allies of Venezuela. Both have lent billions of dollars to the oil-rich South American country, propping up the anti-US government of President Nicolas Maduro
Venezuela's attempt at producing a Muammar Qadaffy...Russia has also vocally opposed US moves to sanction Maduro and his government, and to recognize opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela's interim president.
US moves against Caracas have ratcheted up in recent weeks, with President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
warning "all options" -- implicitly including US military intervention -- were being considered.
On April 28, US sanctions are to jump up a level with a ban on crude imports from Venezuela. America is historically Venezuela's biggest oil buyer, and that step is expected to severely crimp the Maduro government's already diminished finances.
Russia has previously signalled its support for Maduro by sending two TU-160 bombers to Venezuela last December to take part in a military exercise.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin
...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances...has a record of ordering his military -- or paramilitary -- forces into several theaters to challenge US strategies, notably in Syria and Ukraine.
However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
any Russian foothold in Latin America, especially Venezuela, would alarm the US military. It would also be a political test for Trump, who has routinely avoided criticizing Putin.