A contingent of sailors from Russia’s North Sea Fleet participated in a military parade in Caracas Friday marking the 213th anniversary of Venezuela’s independence.
The seamen arrived earlier in the day to take part in the celebrations, which also fell on the country’s annual Day of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces. A contingent of ships including the nuclear submarine Kazan, the frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the supply tanker Akademik Pashin entered the Venezuelan port of La Guaira just two weeks after docking in a Cuban port in Havana.
"This is a vivid symbol of unbreakable Russian-Venezuelan friendship, which demonstrates our firm desire to further strengthen strategic partnership in all areas," Russian Ambassador to Venezuela Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov told a Russian news agency.
"As a special symbol of our unbreakable friendship and military cooperation, our honorable guard company will participate in the upcoming July 5 parade on the occasion of Venezuela's Independence Day," he continued. "Our sailors will march in parade formation alongside Venezuelan friends and demonstrate their firm confidence in defending national sovereignty and independence in the emerging just multipolar world order."
"Today we are receiving warships of the brotherly Russian Federation," said Venezuelan Vice Admiral Edward Centeno Mass, the deputy commander of the Venezuelan Navy. "Venezuela and Russia are brothers in the fight against US imperialism."
The act represents the ongoing strengthening of Russian influence in Latin America and the decline of US power in an area it has long regarded as its imperial backyard. In 2019 former US National Security Advisor John Bolton proclaimed “the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well” in a speech before veterans of the failed US Bay of Pigs coup in Cuba, declaring the United States’ presumed right to dominate the region.
The US has long opposed Venezuela’s anti-imperialist government, organizing a coup against former President Hugo Chávez in 2002 before attempting to unseat leader Nicolás Maduro in 2019. The United States backed a slew of fascistic dictatorships in the region throughout the Cold War, leading to the death and imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of dissidents in a campaign of state terror known as Operation Condor.
“On July 5, we commemorate the Venezuelan Independence Day by proudly waving the flags of anti-imperialism,” proclaimed Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil. “On this date in 1811, our country freed itself from the Spanish colonial yoke. Since then, our people have kept alive that fight, which culminated in the Bolivarian Revolution. Venezuela, sovereign and socialist!”