The US military on Saturday conducted a drill in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, marking the first known US military exercise in the country since the January 3 attack to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The drill involved two US Marine Corps Osprey aircraft landing near the US Embassy in Caracas, which the US officially reopened in March. The Venezuelan government, led by Acting President Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s vice president, said that it approved the exercise and that the US conducted it to prepare for “medical emergencies or catastrophic emergencies.
The US Embassy said that Gen. Francis L. Donovan, the head of US Southern Command, was brought to the city on board one of the Ospreys, marking his second visit to Venezuela since the US attack, which killed at least 83 people, including Venezuelan military personnel, Cuban presidential guards, and four civilians.
“[Donovan] participated in bilateral talks with high-ranking representatives of the interim government, met with the leadership and staff of the United States Embassy, and observed the joint force conducting a military response exercise,” the US Embassy said in a post on X.
The US military drill in Venezuela comes as the US appears to be moving toward launching a war against Cuba, which has been deprived of Venezuelan and Mexican oil as part of a ramped-up US oil embargo, causing a devastating humanitarian crisis. CIA Director John Ratcliffe recently visited Cuba and reportedly brought along a paramilitary leader who was introduced to the Cuban officials as the one who killed their people in Venezuela.
