Month: June 2019

Venezuelan leader Juan Guaido said Friday that the opposition’s demand for presidential elections is not negotiable, slowing mediation efforts by Norway aimed at resolving Venezuela’s political crisis. 

“A new meeting isn’t planned at the moment, we can get what we’ve proposed on the agenda,” Guaido said at an event in the central city of Valencia, dismissing earlier comments from Russia’s foreign ministry that a third round of exploratory talks with representatives of Nicolas Maduro would take place next week. 

“Nobody who is straight in the head would sit across from a dictator thinking he is negotiating in good faith,” he added.

Guaido’s biting comments, coming as mediators from Norway were in Caracas trying to prevent the talks from derailing, highlight the huge obstacles to negotiating a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela, which has endured economic and political turmoil for years. 

Guaido, who heads the opposition-controlled congress, revived a flagging opposition movement in January by declaring himself Venezuela’s rightful leader, quickly drawing recognition from the United States and more than 50 nations that say Maduro’s re-election last year was illegitimate.

But Maduro, backed by the military as well as Cuba and Russia, has held on to power in the face of U.S. oil sanctions that are adding to misery in a nation hit hard by hyperinflation and widespread fuel, food and power shortages.

Norway has hosted two rounds of exploratory talks between the Venezuelan government and opposition in an attempt to break the ongoing stalemate. 

The opposition, mindful of the collapse of past dialogue attempts that only served to strengthen the government’s hand, has insisted the starting point for negotiations be a willingness by Maduro to hold presidential elections within a reasonable time frame. Maduro has balked at that call, blaming the opposition for boycotting last year’s presidential ballot and insisting instead on elections to revamp the opposition-controlled legislature.

“As long as both sides are hurting and don’t see a way out, there’s a possibility negotiations can succeed,” said James Dobbins, a senior fellow at the Rand Corporation who served as special U.S. envoy to several crisis hotspots including Haiti and Afghanistan. “It’s really the only hope left.”

The setback in Norway’s mediation effort comes amid a frenzy of regional diplomacy tied to the Venezuelan crisis.

Talks with Cuba

Also on Friday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez traveled to Toronto for talks with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, hours after he met Venezuelan socialist party boss Diosdado Cabello in Cuba. 

“Cuba has a different position and that’s one reason why it’s important for us to talk to Cuba” about a solution to the Venezuelan crisis, Freeland said after meeting Rodriguez. She said “free and fair elections” is the way forward for Venezuela. Canada has joined the Trump administration in pressuring Maduro to resign.

Cabello had arrived in Cuba on Thursday. One of his first meetings was with Rodriguez, who said on Twitter they “discussed themes of international interest.” 

Maduro’s alleged crimes

Also Friday, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr, urging him to set up a unit to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes by Maduro and his associates. 

“The long list of Maduro’s crimes includes the illegal mining and trafficking of minerals, transnational drug trafficking, and theft of substantial sums of money from the Venezuelan government and hiding it in offshore bank accounts worldwide,” Rubio said. 

Maduro has denied any illegal activity and says the U.S. wants to overthrow him as a way to exploit Venezuela’s vast oil resources.

Venezuelan passports

In another development, the Trump administration said it will recognize the validity of Venezuelan passports for five years beyond their printed expiration dates. The State Department announced that the passports will be considered valid for visa applications and entry into the United States in recognition of a decision by Venezuela’s opposition-controlled National Assembly.

Getting a new passport or an extension is expensive and lengthy for many Venezuelans. Many of the more than 4 million Venezuelans who fled the country in recent years had left without a valid passport.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is open for talks with Ukraine’s newly elected president. 

Asked Friday why he didn’t congratulate comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy on taking office as Ukrainian president last month, Putin pointed at Zelenskiy’s statements in which he called Russia an aggressor.    

Relations between the two countries have been strained since Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. 

Putin said that Zelenskiy is a talented actor, but noted that “there is a difference between playing and being.”  

He softened the statement by adding that Zelenskiy may have the makings of a leader and said that he is open for a meeting with Ukraine’s new leader.
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The United States on Friday raised the stakes in its standoff with Turkey over Ankara’s deal to acquire a Russian air defense system, laying out a plan to remove the NATO ally from the F-35 fighter jet program that includes halting any new training for Turkish pilots on the advanced aircraft.

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan sent a letter to his Turkish counterpart, seen by Reuters on Friday, that laid out the steps to “unwind” Turkey from the program.

Reuters on Thursday first reported the decision to stop accepting more Turkish pilots for training in the United States, in one of the most concrete signs that the dispute between Washington and Ankara is reaching a breaking point.

The United States says Turkey’s acquisition of Russia’s S-400 air defense system poses a threat to the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 stealthy fighters, which Turkey also plans to buy. The United States says Turkey cannot have both.

Shanahan’s letter explicitly states there will be “no new F-35 training.” It says there were 34 students scheduled for F-35 training later this year.

“This training will not occur because we are suspending Turkey from the F-35 program; there are no longer requirements to gain proficiencies on the systems,” according to an attachment to the letter that is titled, “Unwinding Turkey’s Participation in the F-35 Program.”

In his letter, Shanahan warns that training for Turkish personnel on the F-35 at Luke Air Force Base and Eglin Air Force Base will be discontinued at the end of July.

“This timeline will enable many, but not all, Turkish F-35 students currently training to complete their courses prior to departing the United States by July 31, 2019,” Shanahan said in his letter, which noted: “You still have the option to change course on the S-400.”

Turkey has expressed an interest in buying 100 of the fighters, which would have a total value of $9 billion at current prices.

Strained relationship

If Turkey were removed from the F-35 program, it would be one of the most significant ruptures in recent history in the relationship between the two allies, experts said.

Strains in ties already extend beyond the F-35 to include conflicting strategy in Syria, Iran sanctions and the detention of U.S. consular staff in Turkey.

The disclosure of the decision on the pilots follows signs that Turkey is moving ahead with the S-400 purchase. 

Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on May 22 that Turkish military personnel were receiving training in Russia to use the S-400, and that Russian personnel may go to Turkey. The head of Russian state conglomerate Rostec, Sergei Chemezov, said the country would start delivering S-400 missile systems to Turkey in two months, the Interfax news agency reported.

‘Devastating’ deal

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday it was “out of the question” for Turkey to back away from its deal with Moscow. Erdogan said the United States had not “given us an offer as good as the S-400s.”

The Turkish lira declined as much as 1.5% on Friday before recovering some losses. The currency has shed nearly 10% of its value against the dollar this year in part on fraying diplomatic ties and the risk of U.S. sanctions if Turkey accepts delivery of the S-400s.

Kathryn Wheelbarger, one of the Pentagon’s most senior policy officials, said last week that Turkey’s completion of the transaction with Russia would be “devastating,” dealing heavy blows to the F-35 program and to Turkish interoperability within the NATO alliance.

“The S-400 is a Russian system designed to shoot down an aircraft like the F-35,” said Wheelbarger, an acting assistant secretary of defense. “And it is inconceivable to imagine Russia not taking advantage of that [intelligence] collection opportunity.”
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Chinese leader Xi Jinping is on a three-day state visit to Russia aimed at underscoring Russian-Sino cooperation — and his close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin — in the face of strained relations with the United States. 

“In the past six years, we have met nearly 30 times,” said Xi of the Russian leader. 

“Russia is the country that I have visited the most times, and President Putin is my best friend and colleague,” added Xi. 

While ostensibly timed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties, the state visit comes as both leaders bristle over their treatment by the U.S., which has levied sanctions against Russia since 2014 and currently is engaged in a trade war with China.  

“People generally tend to go to the places where they are liked,” said Mikhail Korostikov, Asia-Pacific observer for the Kommersant daily newspaper, in explaining the personal chemistry between Putin and Xi. “But the conflict with the U.S. that both countries are facing made them closer.” 

Military ties 

Indeed, beyond their grudges with Washington, a shared worldview on global security has helped both sides overcome distrust that once plagued the Soviet-China relationship, which fractured over differing interpretations of communist ideology and border disputes.   

Case in point: inclusion of 3,200 Chinese troops alongside 300,000 Russians in the Kremlin’s massive Vostok-2018 military training exercise in Russia’s Far East last year, according to official sources.

From their perch at the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China now regularly form a global counterweight to the U.S. on thorny issues such as Syria, North Korea and Iran — a point noted by Putin in a statement after meeting with Xi on Wednesday.  

“In discussing important international and regional problems, I can say that in most of them, the views of Russia and China are aligned or very close,” said the Russian leader. 

So, too, increasingly, are their economies. 

Russian ‘pivot’ 

In the wake of Western sanctions levied over the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin announced Russia would “pivot” its economy toward Asia. 

Russian officials now tout trade deals with China worth more than $100 billion annually — making China Russia’s top trading partner — as proof Russia has weathered the storm. Russia is only 10th on China’s list, with the United States first. 

Xi also will appear alongside Putin at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday. While the Chinese delegation to the event is 1,000 strong, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman Jr., is boycotting the event over the detention of an American businessman in Moscow.   

Yet, in all likelihood, the lasting image of the state visit will prove to be Ru Yi and Ding Ding, two giant pandas from China’s Sichuan province that Xi gifted on loan to the Moscow Zoo for the next 15 years.  

With the gesture, Xi tapped into China’s famed panda diplomacy — the use of furry diplomatic gifts to help repair relationships or forge ties anew. 

It certainly seemed to have the desired effect on the Russian leader.  

“When we talk of pandas,” noted Putin, “we always end up with a smile on our faces.” 
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Italian-U.S. carmaker Fiat Chrysler on Thursday pulled the plug on its proposed merger with Renault, saying negotiations had become “unreasonable” because of  political resistance in Paris.  

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, or FCA, had stunned the markets last week with a proposed “merger of equals” with the French group that would — together with Renault’s Japanese partners, Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors — create an auto giant spanning the globe.  

The French government, which controls 15 percent of Renault, gave the deal a conditional green light, with analysts suggesting it wanted more control over the combined group alongside Fiat’s Agnelli family. 

FCA said late Wednesday that it “remains firmly convinced of the compelling, transformational rationale” of the tie-up, which it said was “carefully balanced to deliver substantial benefits to all parties.”

“However it has become clear that the political conditions in France do not currently exist for such a combination to proceed successfully,” it said in a statement.  

On Thursday, FCA chief John Elkann stood by the decision to start, and then leave, the merger talks. 

“When it becomes clear that the conversations have been brought to the point beyond which it becomes unreasonable to go, it is necessary to be equally brave to interrupt them,” Elkann wrote in a letter to employees published by Italian media.  

Renault expressed its “disappointment” at the turnabout. 

“We view the [Fiat] opportunity as timely, having compelling industrial logic and great financial merit, and which would result in a European-based global auto powerhouse,” it said in a statement. 

The combined group, including Nissan and Mitsubishi, would have been by far the world’s biggest, with total sales of 15 million vehicles, compared with both Volkswagen and Toyota, which sell around 10.6 million apiece. 

Shares in Renault plunged by more than 6 percent on the Paris stock exchange. In Milan, FCA shares also initially slid but then recovered to close up 0.1 percent.

Nissan holds key

Despite the verbal sparring that erupted after FCA’s announcement, industry experts did not rule out talks being resumed.  

“The collapse of the proposed Fiat Chrysler/Renault merger leaves both firms exposed to the shifting dynamics of a sector at a crossroads,” Ilana Elbim, credit analyst for Hermes Investment Management, said in a note.  

Pointing to falling sales volumes in major auto markets, she said “mega-mergers designed to save on capital expenditures remain inevitable.” 

On Tuesday, Renault’s board had said it was studying FCA’s offer “with interest,” but held off final approval pending further deliberations.  

By Wednesday, all Renault directors had come around in favor of the merger, with the exception of the employee representative affiliated with the powerful CGT union and two from Nissan who abstained, according to a source close to Renault.   

The two Nissan directors were said to have asked for more time to approve the deal. There was no official comment from Nissan headquarters in Tokyo. 

Relations between Renault and Nissan have come under strain since the arrest in November of their joint boss, Carlos Ghosn, who awaits trial in Japan on charges of financial misconduct. 

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had laid down conditions for the tie-up with FCA, insisting there be no plant closures and that the Renault-Nissan alliance be preserved.  

The Renault source said Le Maire had asked for another board meeting next Tuesday following his return from a trip to Japan, where he was to discuss the proposal with his Japanese counterpart at a meeting of G-20 finance ministers.  

Blame game

A source close to FCA said it was the “sudden and incomprehensible” objections by Le Maire’s ministry that had caused the deal to collapse. 

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said: “When politics tries to intervene in economic procedures, they don’t always behave correctly, I don’t want to say any more.”   

But Le Maire stressed that, of his conditions, only the explicit approval of Nissan remained to be secured, while aides denied that the ministry had played politics with the deal. 

A source close to the finance ministry said the French government “regrets the hasty decision of FCA.” 

“Despite significant progress, a short delay was still necessary so that all conditions set by the state could be met,” it said. 

Le Maire indicated the French government was amenable to changes at Renault despite FCA’s U-turn. 

“We remain open to the prospect of industrial consolidation, but once again, in calmness, without haste, to guarantee the industrial interests of Renault and the industrial interests of the French nation,” he told the French parliament. 

For his part, Elkann said FCA “will continue to be open to opportunities of all kinds that offer the possibility of strengthening and accelerating the realization of this strategy and creating value.” 
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U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron attended a ceremony Thursday at the American Military Cemetery in Normandy to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day, and then held a bilateral meeting. Some 2,500 U.S. troops were killed on June 6 1944, the first day of the Allied invasion to liberate Nazi-occupied France. Ceremonies have been taking place across the region as Britain, Canada and other Allied nations pay tribute to the fallen. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Normandy, the poignant ceremonies come at a time of heightened tension and fears over the future of the transatlantic alliance.
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It was the most massive amphibious invasion the world has ever seen, with tens of thousands of Allied troops spread out across the air and sea aiming to get a toehold in Normandy for the final assault on Nazi Germany. And while portrayals of D-Day often depict an all-white host of invaders, in fact it also included many African Americans.

Roughly 2,000 African American troops are believed to have hit the shores of Normandy in various capacities on June 6, 1944. Serving in a U.S. military still-segregated by race, they encountered discrimination both in the service and when they came home.

But on Normandy, they faced the same danger as everyone else.

The only African American combat unit that day was the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, whose job was to set up explosive-rigged balloons to deter German planes. Waverly Woodson Jr. was a corporal and a medic with the battalion. Although Woodson did not live to see this week’s 75th anniversary – he died in 2005 – he told The Associated Press in 1994 about how his landing craft hit a mine on the way to Omaha Beach.

“The tide brought us in, and that’s when the 88s hit us,” he said of the German 88mm guns. “They were murder. Of our 26 Navy personnel there was only one left. They raked the whole top of the ship and killed all the crew. Then they started with the mortar shells.”

Woodson was wounded in the back and groin while on the landing craft but went on to spend 30 hours on the beach tending to other wounded men before eventually collapsing, according to a letter from then-Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland. Van Hollen, now a U.S. senator, is heading an effort to have Woodson posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on D-Day. But a lack of documentation – in part because of a 1973 fire that destroyed millions of military personnel files – has stymied the effort.

Another member of the unit, William Dabney described what they encountered on D-Day in a 2009 Associated Press interview during the invasion’s 65th anniversary.

“The firing was furious on the beach. I was picking up dead bodies and I was looking at the mines blowing up soldiers. … I didn’t know if I was going to make it or not” said Dabney, then 84, who passed away last year.

Linda Hervieux detailed the exploits of the 320th in her book “Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes, at Home and at War.” She said the military resisted efforts to desegregate as it ramped up for World War II. Instead they kept separate units and separate facilities for black and white troops.

“This was a very expensive and inefficient way to run an army. The Army … could have ordered its men to integrate and to treat black soldiers as fully equal partners in this war. The Army declined to do so,” she said. The Army wanted to focus on the war and didn’t want to become a social experiment, Hervieux said, but she notes that when African American soldiers were called on to fight side by side with whites, they did so without problems.

By the end of World War II, more than a million African Americans were in uniform including the famed Tuskegee Airmen and the 761st Tank Battalion. The Double V campaign launched by the Pittsburgh Courier, a prominent African American newspaper, called for a victory in the war as well as a victory at home over segregation, including in the military.

During World War II, it was unheard of for African American officers to lead white soldiers and they faced discrimination even while in the service. Black troops were often put in support units responsible for transporting supplies. But during the Normandy invasion that didn’t mean they were immune from danger.

Ninety-nine-year-old Johnnie Jones Sr., who joined the military in 1943 out of Southern University in Baton Rouge, was a warrant officer in a unit responsible for unloading equipment and supplies onto Normandy. He remembers wading ashore and coming under fire from a German sniper. He grabbed his weapon and returned fire along with the other soldiers. It’s something that still haunts his memories.

“I still see him, I see him every night,” he told the AP recently. In another incident, he remembers a soldier charging a pillbox, a selfless act that likely ended the soldier’s life. “I know he didn’t come back home. He didn’t come back home but he saved me and he saved many others.”

After defending their country in Europe, many African American troops were met with discrimination yet again at home. Jones remembers coming back the U.S. after the war’s end and having to move to the back of a bus as it crossed the Mason-Dixon line separating North from South. He recalls being harassed by police officers after returning to Louisiana.

“I couldn’t I sit with the soldiers I had been on the battlefield with. I had to go to the back of the bus,” said Jones, who went on to become a lawyer and civil rights activist in Baton Rouge. “Those are the things that come back and haunt you.”

 
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A former nurse who liked to put patients into cardiac arrest because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them was convicted Thursday of 85 counts of murder, making him what is believed to be the worst serial killer in modern German history. 

Oldenburg court judge Sebastian Buehrmann sentenced 42-year-old Niels Hoegel to life in prison and noted the “particular seriousness of the crimes” in his verdict.

Hoegel worked at a hospital in the northwestern city of Oldenburg between 1999 and 2002 and another hospital in nearby Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005, and the killings took place between 2000 and 2005, dpa reported. Hoegel’s victims were between 34 and 96 years old.

2015 conviction

Hoegel was convicted in 2015 of two murders and two attempted murders and is currently serving a life sentence. There are no consecutive sentences in the German system, but the court’s ruling on the seriousness of the crimes all but ensures he will remain incarcerated after the standard 15-year term is up.

During his first trial, Hoegel said he intentionally brought about cardiac crises in some 90 patients in Delmenhorst because he enjoyed the feeling of being able to resuscitate them. He later told investigators that he also killed patients in Oldenburg.

Authorities subsequently investigated hundreds of deaths, exhuming bodies of former patients.

100 counts of murder

In all Hoegel was tried in Oldenburg on 100 counts of murder but the court found him not guilty on 15 counts for lack of evidence. 

During the seven-month trial, Hoegel admitted to 43 of the killings, disputed five and said he couldn’t remember the other 52.

In his closing statement to the court Wednesday, Hoegel expressed shame and remorse, saying he realized how much pain and suffering he had caused with his “terrible deeds.”

“To each and every one of you I sincerely apologize for all that I have done,” he said. 
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Hungarian police say two more bodies have been recovered from the Danube River tour boat crash, raising the death toll to 15, with 13 of the 33 South Koreans on board and the two Hungarian crew members still missing. 

Seven South Korean tourists were rescued after the May 29 collision between the Hableany (Mermaid) sightseeing boat and the Viking Sigyn river cruise ship. 

A huge floating crane may be able to lift the Hableany out of the water in the coming days.

However, the Adam Clark, named after the Scottish engineer who oversaw construction of Budapest’s Chain Bridge completed in 1849, was docked Thursday in north Budapest, as the Danube’s high water level is not allowing it to reach the site of the wreckage, near the Hungarian Parliament building.
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Banking problems, administrative worries, threats of tax reassessments or lawsuits — thousands of French people have problems because U.S. law demands they pay U.S. taxes, even though they have few connections to the United States. They are American citizens who were born in the U.S., but left the country as children. A French parliamentary report says Paris should do more to protect such dual nationals from a tax law they see as unfair.

The U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, known as FATCA, forces banks wanting to operate in the U.S. to report assets held by American citizens overseas. France signed onto FATCA in 2013, creating problems for many American expats and dual nationals who have since been rejected by retail banks seeking to avoid hassle and risk.

The European Banking Federation estimates there are about 300,000 accidental Americans in Europe.

By “accidental,” they mean people who have dual citizenship and who are U.S. born but left as children — some only few weeks after their birth — and never established a life in the U.S.

Still, the Internal Revenue Service or IRS says they must declare their income and pay taxes on it.

Fabien Lehagre is president of the Accidental Americans Association (AAA), which has more than 800 members. Lehagre left the U.S. at 18 months and returned once as a tourist 26 years later.

To avoid bureaucratic headaches dealing with the IRS, many banks simply refuse to deal with American customers.

Lehagre complains that when he wants to invest money in stocks or life insurance, or open a bank account online, it is impossible, as he is seen as a U.S. person and banks do not want to take risks. “Our first hurdle is banking,” he said.

FACTA is intended to fight tax evasion. However, the U.S. Congress never voted to help other nations track their citizens’ tax obligations, so foreigners can open bank accounts in the United States without their own country being notified.

French lawmaker Laurent Saint-Martin studied the issue and says France should renegotiate its FATCA tax treaty with the U.S. and consider unilaterally pulling out if it can’t win concessions to protect dual nationals.

He wants a moratorium on the agreement between France and the United States, as long as Europe does not get reciprocity from Washington. It would also be an opportunity to review the full agreement to solve the specific issue of accidental Americans who should not pay U.S. taxes.

Several European delegations have discussed the issue at the U.S. State Department and the IRS, but so far, the Trump administration has not shown any willingness to renegotiate FACTA to end the burden on accidental Americans.

 
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Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sat down for talks at the Kremlin in a visit affirming the increasingly close relationship between the two former Cold War communist rivals.

Xi, who arrived in Moscow earlier in the day, will attend a ceremony marking the launch of a Chinese car factory and stop by Moscow’s zoo to hand over two pandas. Xi will also be one of the key speakers at Russia’s major investment conference in St. Petersburg on Friday.

Putin and Xi are meeting in Russia as world leaders gathered on the south coast of England to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Putin, who attended 70th anniversary commemorations in France five years ago, has not been invited. Russia was not involved in D-Day but the Soviet effort was crucial in defeating the Nazis on the Eastern Front.

China and Russia in recent years have aligned their foreign policy positions at the United Nations and in regard to major international crises such as Syria and Iran’s nuclear program.

Putin in televised remarks at the start of the talks at the Kremlin called Xi a “friend” while the Chinese leader said that he hoped the talks will be a success.

 
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Russia has denied it informed U.S. President Donald Trump that it is pulling defense personnel out of Venezuela, contradicting a comment by the U.S. leader.

“I was surprised when I read this. We did not notify anyone. He apparently read an article in The Wall Street Journal,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on June 4 referring to a June 3 tweet by Trump.

Trump in March said Russia “has to get out” of the South American nation after it landed planes carrying supplies and technical advisers to help President Nicolas Maduro amid an uprising.

The United States is seeking the ouster of Maduro, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as thousands of Venezuelan citizens take to the streets to protest his regime.

Trump on June 3 tweeted that Russia had informed the United States “that they have removed most of their people from Venezuela.”

His tweet came a day after The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed source close to the Russian Defense Ministry, reported that Moscow had pulled out many defense advisers from the country.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said that Russia had not informed the United States of any such withdrawal, adding that Russian specialists continue to work in the South American country.

However, neither Lavrov nor Peskov addressed whether the number of Russian advisers in Venezuela has decreased significantly.

The Wall Street Journal reported on June 2 that Russian state defense contractor Rostec had reduced its staff in Venezuela from about 1,000 several years ago to “just a few dozen.”

Rostec, which trains Venezuelan troops to use Russian weapons, is pulling personnel due to a drop in military contracts “and the acceptance” that Maduro’s regime doesn’t have the money to pay for its services, The Wall Street Journal reported.

However, Rostec said the paper’s description of a massive withdrawal of Russian personnel was “overstated by tenfold.”

The Russian state-owned corporation said its technical advisers come and go all the time as demanded by service contracts and that some advisers had recently left after completing work on airplanes.

The State Department declined to comment on whether it has information that Russia is cutting back its presence in Venezuela. The Pentagon did not immediately reply to a request by RFE/RL for comment.
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