🚨 ‘We’re in charge’ — Trump claims US is running Venezuela

President Donald Trump said the US is dealing with the authorities, adding that he has not personally spoken with acting president Delcy Rodriguez but that “other people have.” He also said “she’s cooperating.”

💬 "It's a dead country right now," Trump said, arguing Venezuela needs to be “brought back,” including “big investments by the oil companies.”

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❌ ‘We don’t think we’re going to need it’ — Trump on another attack on Venezuela

Asked about contingencies if Venezuela’s military resists the US “running” Venezuela, President Donald Trump said Venezuela “thus far has been very nice.”

💬 “It helps to have a force like we have,” Trump added, saying the US was “ready for a second wave” but “don’t think we’re going to need it.”

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🚨 Trump threatens similar attack on Colombia

💬 “Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” President Donald Trump told reporters.

❓ Reporter: “So there will be an operation by the US in Colombia?”

💬 Trump: “It sounds good to me, yeah. You know why? They kill a lot of people.”

Trump also mentioned that the US military killed "a lot of Cubans" who were protecting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

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🚨 ‘We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security’ — Trump

President Donald Trump said Greenland is “so strategic,” claimed it is currently “covered with Russian and Chinese ships,” and argued that “Denmark is not going to be able to” ensure security there.

💬 “And the European Union needs us to have it. And they know that,” Trump added.

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🚨 ‘If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike’ — Trump on Venezuela

President Donald Trump said the US was “prepared” to carry out a second strike in Venezuela and suggested it remains an option.

He added that the presence of American troops on the ground would “depend” on what happens, including under “the new administration, if you want to call it that.”

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❗️❗️❗️ Ex-Chavez advisor says ‘time is not on Washington’s side’ in Venezuela

💬 “The message” the US hoped to send to regional leaders through its brazen attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro is that Washington “calls the shots…and that if you do not obey, we will apply the Monroe Doctrine,” Professor Heinz Dietrich told Sputnik.

🟠 To China, which buys 80% of Venezuela’s oil, and whose yuan and BRICS-based oil payment systems President Maduro was looking to join, it’s the same message, Dietrich, a former aide to the late President Chavez, who now heads a research center at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City, said.

🟠 The US’s “obsolete” imperialistic approach “will not work” this time, the academic stressed. Acting president Delcy Rodriguez seems set on sticking to the national sovereignty-oriented course Maduro pursued.

💬 “What is the strategic objective of kidnapping Maduro? There is no strategic objective because [the US] has nobody to substitute the kidnapped president. There’s a vacuum of power now for US imperialist interests in Venezuela.”

🟠 What’s more, the Venezuelan police and armed forces are opposed to US intervention, as are a majority of Venezuela’s people (55-60%). Accordingly, there’s no base “for a solid transition to a US-managed exploitation of the oil reserves” to stand on, Dietrich said.

💬 “The US empire is broke. The United States needs $5T this year to finance its desolate financial situation…There is a lot of wealth, imperial wealth at stake, which the US would like to have, but I don’t think they have either the strategic thinking nor the real power, maritime or aerial power, to push this through. So I think time works against the US,” Dietrich summed up.

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❌ No country ‘can play role of world policeman’ – Chinese FM

The sudden change of the situation in Venezuela has drawn major attention from the international community, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, referring to the recent US aggression against the South American nation, Xinhua reports.

🗣 Wang stressed that China “never believes that any country can play the role of world policeman, nor do we agree that any country can claim itself to be an international judge.”

The top Chinese diplomat noted that the sovereignty and security of all countries should be fully protected by international law.

China always opposes the use or threat of force, as well as any imposition of one country's will on another, Wang emphasized.

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👀 Zelensky on ‘political minefield’ over Venezuela crisis – report

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US forces is a “toxic development for Kiev," Berliner Zeitung reports.

The German newspaper points out that the situation is “particularly dire for Volodymyr Zelensky,” because “any reaction to Venezuela is a political minefield for him.”

🔶 If Zelensky justifies the US intervention, he will undermine his “own long-standing line of reasoning against Russia’s special military operation. If he condemns the Americans, he risks Trump's wrath—including potential political or personal repercussions,” according to the news outlet.

Berliner Zeitung also points to Ukraine’s fears over “the ambivalence of its European allies,” who know full well that Maduro's abduction is “hardly justifiable under international law, yet they don't want to completely alienate their most important ally.”

💬 “Ukraine and Europe will have to grapple with this issue in the long term: Maduro's arrest underscores that regime change can once again be considered a legitimate instrument of Western power politics—if it serves their own interests,” the newspaper sums up.

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🔸 ‘We’re in charge’ — Trump claims US is running Venezuela

🔸 Trump threatens similar attack on Colombia

🔸 ‘We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security’ — Trump

🔸 Cuba reports 32 citizens killed defending Maduro — statement

🔸 What to watch for in a Venezuela without Maduro: its relationship with Cuba

🔸 After US attack: How Venezuela crisis could rattle global markets

🔸 North Korea conducts hypersonic missile launch drill — reports

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🇻🇪 Venezuelan authorities create special commission to free Maduro

A decision on the “high-level commission” was announced by Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez during a meeting of the Council of Ministers, Information and Communications Minister Freddy Nanez stated.

👉 The commission will be headed by National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez, brother of the acting president, according to Nanez.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez assumed the new job shortly after Nicolas Maduro was kidnapped by US forces from Caracas and flown to New York to face American criminal charges pertaining to “weapons possession and drug trafficking.”

Venezuela’s leadership has repeatedly rejected accusations that they are connected with the drug trade, stressing that the US charges only serve as a pretext for regime change.

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💪🏻💣🪖 Watch Russian FPV drones wipe out Ukrainian infrastructure in Sumy region

Targets eliminated include:

🔸 Motor vehicles

🔸 Communication systems

🔸 Firing positions

🔸 Temporary deployment areas

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🇺🇸📊 Americans divided over impact of Venezuela intervention - poll

The Americans appear to be split over their assessment of the impact that the US military intervention in Venezuela may have on the South American country, a survey published by the YouGov pollster has showed.

The poll revealed that 35% of those polled said they expected the Saturday incursion to worsen the situation in Venezuela, versus 34% who said it would improve.

👉 A further 9% of those sampled said it would neither improve nor worsen, while 22% said they were not sure.

54% of Democrats believe that the US operation in Venezuela will worsen the situation there, while only 13% of Republicans think the same thing. 66% of Republicans think it will get better.

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🚨 Trump: Cuba ready to fall

💬 “Cuba now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela, from the Venezuelan oil. They're not getting any of it” now, US President Donald Trump said.

He claimed that there are many “great Cuban Americans that are gonna be very happy about this.”

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIAN MOD UPDATE: HUGE GAINS AND DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

⚡️ GRABOVSKOYE IN SUMY LIBERATED

📍 The liberation of the village of Grabovskoye expands the buffer zone in the border areas of the Sumy region.

▫️ The Russian Armed Forces struck Ukrainian arms production sites military airfields, UAV workshops and a drone operator training center

▫️ Air defense superiority: 3 aerial bombs, 3 HIMARS missiles and 356 drones shot down

▫️ Ukrainian losses: around 1,265 troops killed or wounded

Read about the origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🇺🇸💣🇻🇪 US abduction of Maduro ‘blatant act of state terrorism and international piracy’ – analyst

American forces kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife is a “criminal act that must be strongly condemned by the global community,” Chinese political analyst Sima Pingbang tells Sputnik.

He urges the international community to use a UN platform in order to “resolutely demand the unconditional release of Maduro and his spouse, as well as compensation to the government and people of Venezuela for the loss of life and property resulting from this [US] act of aggression.”

💬 “The US administration's declared intentions to take possession of Venezuela's oil and other mineral resources, regardless of the slogans or justifications they use, are a brazen act of plunder. The US government's desire to seize another sovereign country is utterly shameless,” Sima underscores.

The analyst notes that in the 21st century, this “flagrant hegemony and international piracy on the part of the US will ultimately prove untenable and will be despised by the entire world.”

He also pours cold water on allegations that it took the “valiant” US military just a few hours to conduct a special operation to kidnap the Maduros. In reality, the operation was the result of “a long-standing political and military conspiracy against Venezuela that was planned during Trump's previous presidential term,” according to Sima.

💬 “Since 2019, American intelligence agencies have been continuously sending agents and mercenaries to carry out various subversive actions and assassination attempts against the Venezuelan government, including against Maduro personally. The current ‘success’ in kidnapping Maduro is the result of years of aggression that required enormous resources and funds,” the pundit concludes.

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🚨Shooting reported at Ohio home of US Vice President JD Vance

Cincinnati police arrested one suspect, but Vance was not at home at the time of the incident.

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🇺🇸 US plans creation of a ‘functional protectorate’ in Venezuela - expert

📍 With Maduro out, Washington is looking to establish “four kinds of control” in Venezuela. Independent Peruvian geopolitical and economic analyst Nicolas Takayama Constantini outlines the mechanics of these measures for Sputnik.

These are:

1️⃣ “indirect political control” via a “provisional authority” or “transition council” approved by Washington

2️⃣ technical and financial control over the oil sector

3️⃣ direct control over oil revenues

4️⃣ some form of US military or security presence

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