Russia has secretly deployed about 400 elite mercenaries or military contractors to Venezuela, according to Lenta.ru.

Russia’s news agency quoted the head of the Committee of the All-Russian Officers’ Assembly, Yevgeny Shabaev on 25 January as saying that military contractors were urgently deploy to Venezuela.

“On the evening of January 21, a certain group of men were instructed to quickly recruit a group. They carried out orders from private military companies, ”explained Shabayev.

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According to him, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro fears betrayal and therefore it was necessary to replace his personal protection with loyal people, which was done.

After recruitment, the group was sent by two charter flights to Havana, the capital of Cuba. From there, one of the mercenaries called and said that they had been deployed to Caracas. The contractors arrived in Venezuela on Tuesday, January 22, Shabayev said.

He also noted that that the sent mercenaries are not associated with the Russian private military company Wagner (a mercenary outfit highly active in the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts) and restaurateur Yevgeny Prigogine, who is considered its leader.

Russia’s Defense Ministry and Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment about the contractors. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We have no such information.”

Early some media were reported that Russian private military contractors flew into Venezuela in the past few days to beef up security for President Nicolas Maduro in the face of US-backed opposition protests, according to two people close to them.

Russia, which has backed Maduro’s socialist government to the tune of billions of dollars, this week promised to stand by him after the opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself president with Washington’s endorsement.

It was the latest international crisis to split the global superpowers, with the United States and Europe backing Guaido, and Russia and China urging noninterference.

Also was reported that Russian private military contractors taken part forcibly disperse anti-government demonstrators in Khartoum, Sudan.