CARACAS: Venezuela has conducted military exercises and deployed troops to its borders in response to a major United States naval build-up near its waters.
President Nicolas Maduro accused the United States of pursuing regime change under the guise of combating drug trafficking.
Washington dispatched eight warships and a nuclear-powered submarine to the southern Caribbean alongside ten fighter jets to Puerto Rico.
President Donald Trump claimed United States forces destroyed three Venezuelan drug boats, killing at least fourteen people described as narco-terrorists.
Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez called the situation an undeclared war during war games on Venezuela’s Caribbean island of La Orchila.
Some 2,500 troops, twelve naval vessels, and twenty-two aircraft participated in three days of exercises backed by twenty wooden fishing boats carrying civilian militia members.
Television images showed paratroopers landing, Russian Sukhoi fighter jets patrolling skies, and troops in amphibious Chinese-made tanks with cannons pointed skyward.
Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello declared that Venezuela must remain impregnable against foreign aggression.
Military analysts expressed scepticism about Venezuela’s ability to confront the world’s largest military power due to ill-disciplined forces and outdated equipment.
Political and military analyst Hernan Lugo-Galicia warned that concentrating forces on La Orchila made them an easy target for a maritime blockade with air support.
Exiled former Air Force commander Raynell Martinez described the drills as mere propaganda aimed at convincing Venezuelans the armed forces remained fully operational.
A retired general and former political prisoner dismissed the exercises as a waste of time and money held in an environment entirely different from the mainland.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates Venezuela’s armed forces comprise 123,000 personnel with an additional 220,000 volunteer militia members loyal to Maduro.
Experts believe the actual numbers are much lower than officially claimed.
Venezuelan troops will provide weapons training to civilians in the capital on Saturday as part of the ongoing mobilisation. – AFP
