Moscow refuses to withdraw troops from Venezuela after President Trump says ‘get out’

Moscow says its troops will assist crisis-torn Venezuela’s President Maduro “for as long as needed” in an outright rejection of President Trump’s call to “get out”. The tense standoff appears to have set the failed South American nation down a Cold War style path of becoming a ‘proxy state’, where the US and Russia battle it out behind the scenes with their own favoured leadership. Moscow insists its troops are there to fulfil prior agreements: “They are involved in the implementation of agreements in the sphere of military and technical co-operation,” said Kremlin Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. “Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone.” More…