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Lavrov affirms ‘unquestionable’ Russian-Venezuelan cooperation in military-tech sphere

The minister stressed that the issue of bilateral cooperation is "a subject of relations between Moscow and Caracas"

MOSCOW, June 18. /TASS/. Moscow and Caracas are cooperating in the military-technical sphere in full compliance with Venezuela’s legislation and this interaction is indisputable, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told TASS on Tuesday.

"We send our experts to Venezuela and they are handling the maintenance of the hardware supplied to Venezuela under the contracts signed back under [former President] Hugo Chavez, the contracts that are fully based on Venezuelan legislation," Russia’s top diplomat assured.

"So, there are no questions here whatsoever and there cannot be any in this regard," Lavrov stressed.

Touching on a statement by White House National Security Adviser John Bolton that Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro had allegedly signed a defense contract with Russia in May to the tune of $209 million, the Russian foreign minister said he "does not even want to comment on this." "Our colleagues keep rambling on over the same topic even though all the explanations had been provided long ago."

"Russian-Venezuelan cooperation in the military-technical, economic, humanitarian and political spheres are a subject of relations between Moscow and Caracas," Lavrov stressed.

"The advice by an outsider is, perhaps, quite inappropriate here, although we understand that the United States is now giving advice to anyone and everyone," the Russian foreign minister asserted.