Saudi Petrodollar Have Fueled the Venezuela Crisis

A Russian source reports.

Last night I was with my very good friend Michail Ivanovitsj Orlovets, the former Russian ambassador to Venezuela who told me that Major Dmitry Yuryevich Telkanov, a Russian assistant military attaché in the Venezuelan embassy, spoke with him on the phone yesterday, revealing a secret meeting between US officials and Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan opposition leader, at the Saudi embassy.

Telkanov revealed that three days after the second inauguration of Nicolás Maduro, a delegation from the United States visited Venezuela on January 13. Headed by the former ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, the delegations left Simón Bolívar International Airport straight for the Saudi Embassy in Calle Andres Pietri, Caracas, to attend a secret meeting with Juan Guaidó in the presence of Saudi diplomats, who, allegedly, paid $130 million to Guaidó three days later.

The public dissatisfaction in Venezuela flows from the rising inflation, declining purchasing power, and the shortage of food and medicine, which have given rise to a serious political crisis in the country. On January 23, Juan Guaidó, Venezuela’s President of the National Assembly, took advantage of the ongoing national protests, and called the recent presidential election illegitimate, declaring himself interim president of Venezuela. Subsequently, the incumbent president Nicolás Maduro accused the US of leading a major provocation against Venezuela, and expelled all US diplomats. Now, we must wait and see what fate awaits Venezuela, and whether Saudi diplomats will have to leave Caracas, like their American counterparts.