Online Reporter
Russia, Iran and other countries have broadly condemned the United States’ attack on Venezuela early yesterday, while elsewhere, world leaders called for de-escalation and said they were monitoring the situation.
The US yesterday said it had captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and launched “large-scale” strikes on the South American nation.
US President Donald Trump said Maduro had been flown out of the country.
The Russian foreign ministry called Saturday’s strikes on Venezuela “an act of armed aggression” that is “deeply concerning and condemnable.
“The pretexts used to justify such actions are unfounded. In the current situation, it is important, first and foremost, to prevent further escalation and to focus on finding a way out of the situation through dialogue.
“Latin America must remain a zone of peace, as it declared itself to be in 2014. And Venezuela must be guaranteed the right to determine its own destiny without any destructive, let alone military, interference from outside.”
The ministry said it was joining Venezuelan authorities and leaders of Latin American countries in calling for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said the US was “arrogantly trying to impose something on the country, on the officials, on the government, and on the nation” of Venezuela. “We will not yield to the enemy,” he said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, in a social media post on X, called for a meeting of the UN Security Council, saying the US attack is an “aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America.”
Petro said Colombia also said it is deploying forces to the border “in case of a massive influx of refugees.”
Kaja Kallas, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a post on X that the European union is closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela.
In Germany, Roderich Kiesewetter, a prominent member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, called the US attack a “coup.”
“With President Trump, the US are abandoning the rules-based order that has shaped us since 1945,” he said.
“The coup in Venezuela marks a return to the old U.S. doctrine from before 1940: a mindset of thinking in terms of spheres of influence, where the law of force rules, not international law.”
Kiesewetter added: “Trump is destroying what was left of any trust in the US.” – wires
