CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he had deployed 25,000 troops along the Caribbean coast and the border with Colombia amid soaring tensions with US President Donald Trump.
In a message Sunday night on social media Maduro said he had deployed “25,000 men and women from our glorious National Bolivarian Armed Forces” to the frontier with Colombia and the northeast coast, where the country’s biggest oil refineries are situated.
The deployment aimed to ensure “the defense of national sovereignty, the security of the country and the fight for peace,” he added.
He did not expressly refer to Trump, who has cited the need to combat Venezuelan drug traffickers particularly in ordering the biggest naval buildup in the Caribbean in years.
Last week US forces blew up a suspected drug boat with 11 people aboard in the Caribbean.
Trump said the boat belonged to the Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua but provided scant proof of the claim.
The US leader has also threatened to shoot down Venezuelan military jets if they endanger US forces after two Venezuelan planes flew near a US Navy vessel in international waters.
Venezuela’s armed forces run to around 123,000 members, according to military sources.
Maduro claims a further 220,000 people have enlisted in a civilian militia.
Maduro deploys 25,000 troops to Venezuela borders
https://arab.news/gznqz
Maduro deploys 25,000 troops to Venezuela borders
- The move comes amid soaring tensions with US President Donald Trump
- Troops were deployed to the northeast coast, home to Venezuela’s biggest oil refineries
Russia says captured Ukraine’s Siversk in key eastern region
- The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said
- He said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents
MOSCOW: Russia said Thursday its troops had seized full control of Siversk, a Ukrainian city in the eastern Donetsk region where fighting has intensified in recent weeks, though Ukraine denied the key settlement had been lost.
The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine and taking ground from outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces, with some of the fiercest battles taking place in Donetsk.
Russia’s military chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, said Moscow’s forces had captured Siversk in a report to President Vladimir Putin during a televised meeting with army commanders.
The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said, thanking the commanders and soldiers “for their combat work.”
Putin said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents before the war, claiming that the Russian offensive was “practically impossible to hold back.”
The Ukrainian army’s eastern command denied Russian claims it had taken Siversk, saying that it “remains under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
“The enemy is trying to infiltrate Siversk in small groups, taking advantage of unfavorable weather conditions but most of these units are being destroyed on the approaches,” it added in a Facebook post.
Siversk is located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major cities still under Ukrainian control in the Donbas — an industrial and mining region in Moscow’s sights.
Moscow earlier this month said it had captured Pokrovsk, a former road and rail hub also in Donetsk, but Kyiv claims fighting in the city is still ongoing.
Putin has said that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims in eastern Ukraine if Kyiv does not give it up as part of a peace deal.
Eastern Ukraine has been ravaged since Russia launched its assault in February 2022, with tens of thousands of people killed and millions forced to flee their homes.
