Russia resumed thier presence in Nicaragua a few years ago. It’s brought back a lot of corruption and unrest they thought was gone. This is exactly what Russia wants, to get closer to America as the US is working on getting closer to them.
The TU-160 (Blackjack) is a highly capable aircraft. It looks like a B-1 but is actually a larger aircraft. There are not many TU-160s in service but they can carry 12 nuclear missiles or appx 100,000 lbs of conventional bombs. It is more similar in concept to the B-1A than the operational B-1B (which is optimized for low level strikes). The Blackjack is a Mach 2+ aircraft with an impressive range and service ceiling. From Venezuela they are in easy striking distance of the US. I did read a release from the Russian News agency that they had left Venezuela. (Military aviation is another one of my areas of interest ). Wikipedia says 27 serial production TU-160s have been made and 16 are in service. So the Russians don’t have many of these. They aren’t cheap to build and given their complexity I suspect a good number of the 27 are hangar queens. (We built 21 B-2s by contrast and I would guess the same holds true for their numbers that are in service vs undergoing maintenance ).
And for those wondering, no, I am not a military hawk, but have followed the field my whole life.
Ummmm, Cuba, Kennedy, Missile Crisis?
It's too soon , & it will always be so !
It continues to get worse.
In what way?
@Jolanta "Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
@CallMeDave Yes, but I don’t see any “understanding “ coming out of US, neither do I see any desire for dialogue.