MOSCOW, June 3. /TASS/. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has declined to comment on a Wall Street Journal article claiming that Russia is withdrawing its military advisers from Venezuela.
"You are asking the wrong party. You should ask the companies that maintain the equipment provided to Venezuela earlier," he told reporters.
At the same time, the Kremlin spokesman pointed out that the information "has already been rejected by Russia’s side."
The Wall Street Journal claimed earlier that over the past few months, Russia’s Rostec State Corporation, responsible for training Venezuelan military personnel and providing consultations on weapons supply contacts, reduced the number of its advisers from about a thousand to several dozen. The newspaper added that the pullout was due to a lack of new contracts and the fact that the Maduro government was no longer capable of paying for the corporation’s services.
A Rostec spokesman told TASS earlier on Monday that Rostec’s personnel in Venezuela had remained unchanged for years. "The number of military advisers mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article is exaggerated tens of times," he said. "The office staff has remained unchanged for many years. As for technicians, they arrive in the country from time to time to maintain and repair the equipment provided earlier. Just recently, the maintenance of a batch of aircraft was completed," the spokesman added.