The Russian dogs of war and Venezuela

Venezuelan democrats should look at Syria to understand some dangers ahead.

Now we have more of this even if we do not have enough milk

Russia

• has sent rockets to Syria in spite of the massacres against the civilian population
• keeps opposing any UN resolution against the repressive Assad government and
• is now present in Syria with its navy trying to show to the West it sees Syria as its zone of influence.

You can count on it that Russian specialists are helping Assad's thugs to hunt democrats right now.

How can Russia be doing all this? The reasons are obvious: Syria offers the last base Russia still has in the Fertile Crescent and Syria has been paying a lot of money for Russian weapons. 20% of Russia's manufacturing comes from the defence industry.

Venezuela's military caste is a much more important client than Syria at this stage. Russian officials have already declared it is in Russia's absolute interest for Chávez to continue in power.

Russia gave Venezuela last year alone a loan for 4 billion dollars to buy more weapons. There is no way Russian weapon merchants will want to see a reversal of this pattern.

The Russian ambassador to Venezuela, Vladimir Zaemskyi, already confirmed the Kalashnikov factory in Venezuela will be ready by the end of this year. This is the hardest part because it takes Venezuelans to do: they already promised to have those destruction tools for 2009 and then for 2011.

I have been told there have been several visits of Russians in Venezuela which are being kept on very low profile because the Venezuelan government does not want too much attention.

Russian experts are likely to assist Chavismo with SIGINT more and more. They will also train Venezuelan  military honchos more and more to behave like their compradores.