FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Russia Steps Up Economic Aid for Venezuela, Helping Block Another Regime-Change Disaster

March 2, 2019 (EIRNS))—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized following his talks with Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez yesterday that the Russian government will continue to break the economic blockade of Venezuela which neo-conservatives in London and Washington are using to overthrow the legitimate government of Venezuela. Lavrov reported that Russia had just sent 7.5 tons of medicines into Venezuela, and is now “specifying organizational and logistical details” regarding the list of additional medications and medical compounds requested by Rodriguez, on top of the “massive supplies of Russian grain” which Russia has shipped to Venezuela.

He and Rodriguez discussed steps to strengthen “links in trade, investment, industrial production and finances.” They agreed that there will be

“a detailed discussion of the prospects for the implementation of large projects in geological exploration and upstream operations, joint initiatives in the pharmaceuticals industry, information technology, nuclear medicine, peaceful uses of outer space and defense industry cooperation”

at the 14th meeting of the Russian-Venezuelan High-Level Inter-Governmental Commission that is scheduled for early April in Moscow.

Russia’s move is a big problem for the regime-change gambit. As Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Rockefeller family’s U.S. Council of Americas/Americas Society, wrote in the National Interest on Feb. 25, that the possibility of removing the Maduro government requires “squeez[ing] it like the large anacondas that inhabit Venezuelan waters,” because armed intervention is not supported in the region and has little legal basis, nor has it met with much enthusiasm in Washington.

Lavrov singled Elliott Abrams out by name, twice, as a key problem, including that Abrams “says directly that his responsibilities do not include searching for a peaceful solution but raising tensions and creating a situation that would provoke, as the U.S. wants, an explosion and bloodshed in Venezuela, and justify a military intervention.”

In that context, Lavrov reported that the Russians have information that

“the U.S. plans to buy small arms, mortars, portable air defense systems and a number of other types of weapons in an East European country, and move them closer to Venezuela by an airline of a regime that is the most, or rather absolutely obedient to Washington in the post-Soviet space.”

Typical Abrams: an “Iran-Contra Take 2!”

They have a problem, however. Venezuela’s neighbors, Brazil and Colombia in particular, are currently refusing to support any military invasion of Venezuela, Lavrov pointed out. “If they keep their promise and firmly adhere to this position,” these plans “are unlikely to materialize.”