Russia Could Put Troops in Venezuela and Cuba if US Tensions Rise.

If tensions with the US over Ukraine continue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, who led discussions with US officials in Geneva on Jan. 10, said he couldn’t “confirm nor exclude” the potential of a Russian military build-up within the borders of Cuba and Venezuela.

Ryabkov’s statement adds to existing tensions with the West over Russian forces stationed near the Ukraine border, which triggered a high-stakes summit with NATO on Jan. 12 in Vienna.

Putin’s government asked that NATO’s expansion be halted, which the US and its Western partners swiftly rejected.

“It all depends on the actions by our U.S. counterparts,” Ryabkov said in a tv interview, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Moscow was willing to take countermeasures if the US challenged the Kremlin and increased military pressure.

“We are not going to respond to bluster,” a State Department spokeswoman told The Epoch Times. We would deal with Russia decisively if it started moving in that direction.”

The failure to accept the essential Russian demand for guarantees against the US and its allies moving into Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, according to Ryabkov, makes it difficult to address subjects such as arms limitation and creating trust between nations.

In June 2021, in the face of “external threats,” Russia reaffirmed its support for its Latin American friends, with a special focus on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

“We are not going to respond to bluster,” a State Department spokeswoman told The Epoch Times. We would deal with Russia decisively if it started moving in that direction.”

The failure to accept the essential Russian demand for guarantees against the US and its allies moving into Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, according to Ryabkov, makes it difficult to address subjects such as arms control and creating trust between nations.

In June 2021, in the face of “external threats,” Russia reaffirmed its support for its Latin American friends, with a special focus on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.

All three of the countries named are ruled by long-serving dictators.

Since 2006, while dictator Hugo Chavez was in power, Russia has been one of Venezuela’s closest allies. The latter agreed to a $2.9 billion weaponry agreement with Russia in exchange for access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Venezuela’s dictator Nicolas Maduro’s continuing control is made feasible, in part, by the country’s strategic relationship with Putin’s administration.

Russia has also functioned as a lender of last resort for the debt-ridden country, as well as providing military support to Maduro’s dictatorship.

And Russia remains one of Cuba’s staunchest sponsors. Following meetings on the island nation in 2018, the two countries committed to strengthen “strategic” ties.

Then, in October 2021, Ana Teresita Gonzalez, the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, stated that the two countries would continue to cooperate on increasing their economic ties.

During the famous Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s, when Soviet Union missiles arrived in Cuba and the US retaliated with a naval blockade, the politically troubled island nation played a vital role between the US and Russia.

President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev reached an agreement in which Moscow agreed to remove the weapons in exchange for a promise from Washington not to invade Cuba and to remove its missiles from Turkey.

Ryabkov compared the present tensions over Ukraine to the Cuban Missile Crisis in December 2021.

If Russia decides to deploy soldiers in Cuba or Venezuela, it will be the country’s first major military presence in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War ended.

In America, we don’t believe in threats. If Russia wants to get kinetic so be it, but you can thank Biden’s leniency on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline for Russia’s bold strides. Conveniently enough America is far too divided to fight for a common cause. That can be attributed to the deafening static that is plandemic propaganda. No one man can make sense of this elaborate illusion cast over the common man of society, but collectively we can point out each limitation forced upon us and bring it forward as an injustice to the public. In Matthew 10:34 Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” We’re meant to go down preaching the gospel and guiding others to salvation. This could be considered the bravest task a man or woman of faith could undertake, but make no mistake it will bear fruit in the kingdom of heaven. Stay inquisitive in the word of God, and the world around you.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Tuesday that his administration will file a lawsuit to prevent the Pentagon from imposing a vaccination mandate on the Texas National Guard.

In a letter to Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, Adjutant General of the Texas Military Department, Abbott wrote, “As the commander-in-chief of Texas’s militia, I have issued a straightforward order to every member of the Texas National Guard within my chain of command: Do not punish any guardsman for choosing not to receive a COVID-19 vaccine,”

According to Abbott’s letter, his “order has been in effect for months now, Biden has muddied the waters with a vaccine mandate from the U.S. Department of Defense,”

Abbott wrote to Norris, “Unless President Biden federalizes the Texas National Guard in accordance with Title 10 of the U.S. Code, he is not your commander-in-chief under our federal or state Constitutions,” 

Abbott’s news of a lawsuit came just days after Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt lost a similar case in an attempt to stop the Department of Defense’s mandate for National Guard members, and just weeks after Abbott wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stating that the vaccine requirement for Texas Guard members would not be imposed.

Following a judge’s rejection of Stitt’s motion, the Oklahoma National Guard’s head announced on Dec. 30 that unvaccinated airmen will not be permitted to practice.

“The Department of Defense has indicated it will recoup any pay provided to unvaccinated airmen who drill after Jan. 1, 2022,” said US Army Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, adding that the Pentagon “can enforce this threat outside of the State of Oklahoma’s control.” Mancino has already stated that he supports Stitt’s decision not to enforce the mandate.

Army National Guard members have until June 2022 to be inoculated.

The Pentagon began requiring COVID-19 vaccines for service personnel in August. It is the responsibility of each service branch to administer them.

However, after a group of three-dozen Navy Special Warfare servicemembers, including Navy SEALs, sued the Biden administration for refusing them vaccine-related religious exemptions, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to them earlier this week.

“The Navy service members in this case seek to vindicate the very freedoms they have sacrificed so much to protect,” Wrote judge Reed O’Connor, in his order (pdf) on Monday. “The COVID-19 pandemic provides the government no license to abrogate those freedoms. There is no COVID-19 exception to the First Amendment. There is no military exclusion from our Constitution.”

It’s no surprise that we’re seeing this kind of fundamental pushback from Texas public officials. Texans will get up and govern themselves if these elected officials don’t give the public what they want. The question still remains when he will dispose of his credibility and let these tyrants take control. We’re seeing citizens being threatened with jail time in Austria for refusing to get a COVID-19 experimental vaccine; People in China are starving due to air tight lockdowns and the CCP’s “Zero COVID” policy to prepare for the winter Olympics.

There are very thin layers of protection between us free Americans, and the reality that is playing out internationally. People would rather scroll on their phones than to watch how the world is operating during such uncertain times. There is significant evidence to suggest that people have been quite literally programmed that way. Presumably sometime soon the BS will come knocking on the doors of citizens across America. Many will hold their ground, many wont. In the mean time, stay inquisitive in the word of God, and the world around you.