MOSCOW, January 29. / TASS /. US sanctions against Venezuelan Oil Company PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela) is blatant illegal intervention, said Russian Presidential Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday.

"The legal leadership of Venezuela has already described these sanctions as illegal. We can fully join this point of view," said he.

He recalled the "consistent attitude of Moscow to such restrictions, to which American colleagues are increasingly beginning to resort."

"We do not consider this to be right; we consider it most often to be the manifestations of unfair competition. In this case, this is a continued line on undisguised interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela," the Kremlin spokesperson said.

Venezuela crisis

The Kremlin has also warned against negative repercussions should third countries intervene in Venezuela’s affairs. 

"Regarding military intervention by third countries, we spoke about inevitable, extremely negative consequences of such ill-considered actions from the very start," Dmitry Peskov pointed out.

When asked about Russia’s potential military assistance to Venezuela, the Kremlin spokesman stressed that such conclusions "were inadmissible here." "This is a very sensitive issue. Such statements are not conducive to normalizing the situation in Venezuela and sorting out that country’s internal problems," he emphasized.

The issue of Washington sending a military contingent to Colombia, which borders Venezuela, arose after a picture surfaced and went viral of US National Security Adviser John Bolton holding a notepad, with two visible notes reading "Afghanistan - welcome the talks," and "5,000 troops to Colombia," during a press conference on Venezuela.