This will be just highlights from news-reports about Trump’s preparations to regime-change Venezuela, and Maduro’s preparations to overcome and defeat the expected U.S. invasion (which the Trump Administration ‘justifies’ by lies saying that Venezuela is a na
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clSqtBReuDQ
31 October 2025, Danny Haiphong
MAJOR WOMEN’S PANEL ON GEOPOLITICS: Mnar Adley, Katie Halper, Rachel Blevins, and Camila Escalante break down the latest in Trump’s chaotic and crumbling warmongering regime from war preparations on Venezuela to the latest US defeat to China in South Korea.
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Venezuela has 5,000 Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles in “key air defense positions,” its President Nicolás Maduro claimed on Wednesday, amid growing tension over the United States’ military deployment in the Caribbean.
23 October 2025
Venezuela has 5,000 Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles in “key air defense positions,” its President Nicolás Maduro claimed on Wednesday, amid growing tension over the United States’ military deployment in the Caribbean.
US President Donald Trump has said he is weighing military action inside Venezuela as part of a counter-drug trafficking campaign and a broader effort to weaken Maduro, a longtime foe of Washington.
“Any military force in the world knows the power of the Igla-S and Venezuela has no less than 5,000” of them, Maduro said during an event with military personnel broadcast by Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
The Russian Igla-S missiles are short-range, low-altitude systems similar to American Stingers. They can shoot down small aerial targets such as cruise missiles and drones, as well as helicopters and low-flying planes.
Maduro said the missiles, light enough to be carried by a single soldier, had been deployed “even in the last mountain, the last town, and the last city of the territory.”
The US has deployed 4,500 Marines and sailors to the Caribbean to strengthen operations against cartels and demonstrate military power. It has carried out several lethal strikes on boats off the Caribbean coast that it alleges were trafficking narcotics.
Lawmakers from both parties in the US have questioned the legality of the strikes on the alleged “narco boats.”
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Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas amid US-Venezuela tensions
The multi-stop journey is emblematic of the circuitous routes used to avoid Western airspace or possible cargo inspections in unfriendly countries.
“Heavy Russian cargo plane lands in Caracas amid US-Venezuela tensions”
28 October 2025, By Linus Höller
A Russian transport aircraft of a type linked to the country’s military and former Wagner mercenary group has landed in the Venezuelan capital over the weekend, signaling heightened Russian interest in the Latin American country.
The Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft with the registration RA-78765 arrived in Caracas on Sunday after a two-day journey that took it from Russia via Armenia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Mauritania to Latin America, flight records show. It appears the aircraft embarked on its trip from an airport in the greater Moscow area, with the transponder signal first being picked up shortly after takeoff.
The multi-stop journey is emblematic of the circuitous routes used to avoid Western airspace or possible cargo inspections in unfriendly countries. It is also possible that deliveries or pick-ups were made along the way. …
An Il-76 can transport up to 50 tons of cargo or up to 200 people. Aircraft of this type are known to have delivered small arms, military supplies and even mercenaries on Russia’s behalf in the past. Larger deliveries, such as an S-400 air defense system, would likely require several trips. …
The latest Russian moves in the region come as tensions between Venezuela, a longtime Moscow-aligned country, and the United States have reached new heights. The U.S. has accused the government in Caracas of being involved in the illegal drug trade, and has deployed military assets to the region to conduct strikes on vessels it accuses of trafficking narcotics.
Washington has recently moved an aircraft carrier strike group to the region in a significant escalation of its military posturing. Venezuela has accused the U.S. of “fabricating war.”
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US could fire Tomahawks into Venezuela: Former ambassador
The U.S. this week confirmed a string of strikes on alleged drug vessels in the Pacific.
“US Could Fire Tomahawks Into Venezuela: Former Ambassador”
30 October 2025
The United States could fire long-range cruise missiles into Venezuela to ratchet up the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro, a former U.S. diplomat has warned, as doubts reign over just how far the White House will go amid a military build-up in the southern Caribbean.
U.S. forces close to Venezuela may launch a series of Tomahawk cruise missiles at targeted sites in the South American country from outside of Caracas’ territorial waters, John Feeley, former U.S. ambassador to Panama who also served as the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told Newsweek.
President Donald Trump’s administration is almost two months into what it has characterized as an uncompromising crackdown on drug smuggling to the U.S., a strike campaign widely decried by Democrats and some Republicans, as well as United Nations experts and former officials as illegal under international law.
The Trump administration insists the attacks are legal.
Washington has publicly acknowledged strikes on at least 14 vessels in both the southern Caribbean and Pacific since early September. A total of 61 people have been killed, according to the administration. …
The U.S. has dramatically increased its military presence in the southern Caribbean by deploying troops, aircraft, surface vessels and a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine to the region. The USS Gerald Ford, the Navy’s newest and largest aircraft carrier, is en route to the southern Caribbean with all the aircraft and warships that accompany it. U.S. bombers have repeatedly flown close to Venezuela’s coastline in recent weeks. …
Just one of the multiple destroyers looming over Venezuela’s shoulder would be capable of launching a series of Tomahawk cruise missile strikes, prompting many onlookers to see the swollen number of forces in the region as a portend of regime change rather than counternarcotics operations. …
It’s generally thought a boots-on-the-ground U.S. invasion of Venezuela is off the table, which would jar with the America First agenda the administration has trumpeted and would resurrect ghosts of U.S. military intervention in countries like Panama, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Trump would likely steer clear of land operations with troops, said Joe Sestak, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral and former director for Defense Policy on the National Security Council staff. …
Former officials and experts say the administration’s rhetoric doesn’t match its actions over the past two months. Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. die each year from fentanyl-related causes. The synthetic opioid mostly makes its way into the U.S. from China and India via the Mexican border.
“The biggest problem through every single one of these strikes is that the United States contends that they’re doing this to prevent the importation of fentanyl,” said Kelly. “Fentanyl doesn’t originate in South America,” he told Newsweek.
“This is a fig leaf of gigantic proportions,” added Kelly.
Much of the cocaine coming out of South America comes from countries like Colombia and Ecuador, and then transits through Venezuela. The routes typically then head to West Africa and Europe from Venezuela, rather than north to the U.S.
U.S. drug officials have long said the vast majority of the cocaine heading for the U.S. comes via the Pacific, with only about a tenth heading for American soil from the southern Caribbean. …
It’s not just Venezuela, a historic U.S. antagonist, that’s in the firing line. Neighboring Colombia is one of the U.S.’s most firm South American allies with a sizable military itself, but the country’s left-wing leader, Gustavo Petro, said the White House had killed a Colombian national in a mid-September strike and violated Colombian sovereignty.
Petro accused the U.S. of “murder,” and in fresh comments on social media on Tuesday, said the multiple strikes in the Pacific the previous day amounted to a war crime. Trump has called Petro an “illegal drug leader” and this month pulled longstanding U.S. aid for Bogotá. An American program dubbed Plan Colombia was established in 2000 to battle drug trafficking.
Slashing aid for Colombia ignores the heart of the issue, said Idler. Bogotá needs U.S. support to manage armed groups and illicit trade, while Washington needs Colombia for on-the-ground intelligence gathering, Idler added. Without this partnership, the drug trade and the armed gangs prevail, she said.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told CBS’s Face The Nation over the weekend that Trump planned to brief Congress “about future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia,” including “expanding from the sea to the land. …
“I can tell you for certain that nobody in the State Department or in the CIA is empowered to be able to plan for ‘day after’ scenario,” said Feeley. “All the meticulous timelines that are done in a military campaign. They exist on an Excel spreadsheet somewhere in the Pentagon,” he said. “But the political overlay to this is one that is mired completely in caprice and whim.”
“That makes it fundamentally scary to me,” he added. …
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Trump’s disdain for Maduro is common knowledge, Feeley said. “The question is: How far is he willing to go to seek to remove Maduro?”
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As U.S. blows up drug boats, Venezuelan oil continues to flow
“Shadow tankers,” which transport sanctioned or illicit Venezuelan oil, are still coming and going.
“As U.S. blows up drug boats, Venezuelan oil continues to flow”
31 October 2025
CARACAS – While the American military blows up boats it claims are transporting drugs from Venezuela, observers say tankers shipping Venezuelan oil in violation of a U.S. embargo continue to navigate the very same Caribbean waters undisturbed.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has claimed a massive U.S. military deployment within striking distance of his country was part of a plan to overthrow him and “steal” his country’s oil under the ruse of an anti-drug operation.
Has the perceived U.S. military threat affected crude exports from Venezuela, the country with more of the “black gold” than any other?
Business as usual
Apart from ships used by U.S. energy giant Chevron — which has a temporary license to extract Venezuelan oil — experts say the Caribbean also plays host to “shadow tankers,” which transport sanctioned or illicit oil.
“The shadow tankers circulate without problem. Just like before the American deployment. The Americans cannot not see them. They allow them to circulate,” an expert in the sector said on condition of anonymity.
Elias Ferrer, founder of the Venezuela-based Orinoco Research group, added “the shadow tankers, sanctioned ships, continue to come and go” as before — feeding a voracious market — mainly in China.
Ferrer believes the United States likely does not want to interfere with these ships “as this would be equivalent to a declaration of war” in a time of strained ties with potentially formidable military foes such as China. …
Hastened by a crushing U.S. embargo on crude exports in response to Maduro’s disputed 2018 reelection, production in the country plummeted from 3 million barrels per day (bpd) in the early 2000s to below 400,000 bpd by 2020.
In 2022, then-U.S. President Joe Biden eased sanctions as the world faced an energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But he reinstated them after Maduro was widely accused of stealing his second reelection in a row, in 2024.
Chevron was allowed to continue extraction, but in May of this year, Trump ordered the company and others to wind up operations in Venezuela.
Then in July, Maduro announced the U.S. had agreed to allow Chevron to continue operating for an unspecified period. This came within weeks of a diplomatic agreement involving a U.S.-Venezuela prisoner exchange.
Chevron produces between a quarter and a third of Venezuelan oil and was long the country’s main source of foreign currency, though since July, it is only allowed to pay Venezuela in crude — which Caracas then sells on.
Venezuelan oil production has inched back up over the past year, and today stands at about 1 million bpd — just over 1% of the global total.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is also hydrocarbons minister, has hailed growth of 16% in Venezuelan oil sector activity this year.
Bargain price
Since Trump threatened an export tariff of 25% on any country buying Venezuelan oil, the country has had to slash its black market prices — by as much as 20%, according to Tamara Herrera of the Sintesis Financiera consulting firm.
After teething problems in the beginning, she said Caracas soon found willing black market buyers and oil is now “moving quickly.”
“It’s sold at unfavorable prices, but just one month of Chevron’s activity being suspended, China quickly filled the gap,” said Herrera.
Analysts are unsure what the future holds. …
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10_J9t4Qs_8
“Russia’s ‘flying truck’ lands in Venezuela with ‘mystery weapon’”
Global News Factory, 31 October 2025
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