47 Plots against the Air Force

The Venezuelan Air Force has 22 Sukhoi fighter planes. The planes were on the news yesterday because ruling PSUV leader Freddy Bernal told the Spanish paper ABC that the Sukhoi are capable of bombing Bogotá and returning to Venezuelan bases in three minutes.

“I believe Colombia’s president, Iván Duque, is a poor character, without criteria for government, who has become a mere assistant to Álvaro Uribe Vélez. They [the Colombian government] thought that if they threatened us, we would be intimidated, we would hide. But when we moved 10,000 men and women to the border, when we activated our defense mechanisms, the militia, when we moved our Sukhoi planes, which have the capacity to take off from a base in the city of Barquisimeto [Venezuela], bomb the Nariño Palace [Colombia presidential palace in Bogota], and return to their base in only three minutes, they thought twice, because we want peace, but we are ready for war,” Bernal told ABC.

Also yesterday, Nicolás Maduro told Air Force officers that his government has “detected and dismantled” 47 conspiracies against “Venezuela’s air defense system.”

“My recognition to you [Air Force officers], because the morals of the Bolivarian revolution has defeated all these crazy plots. You should know that we have detected 47 plots, many were directed against the Bolivarian Military Air Force, specifically against the Sukoi system, [the plots] were funded with dollars from Colombia,” said Maduro.

He added that all these conspiracies have been defeated: “One by one we have cancelled and eradicated these plots, but I tell you we must be on a high moral guard in order to defeat this madness and these plots.”