President Trump said Wednesday that Russia has no business meddling in strife-torn Venezuela — and that Moscow’s military must leave the country and abandon its support of socialist strongman Nicolàs Maduro.

“Russia needs to get out,” Trump declared in response to a reporter’s question during a White House meeting with Fabiana Rosales, the wife of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó.

Asked if Russia was aware of his displeasure, Trump replied: “They know. They know very well.”

Rosales is in the US to rally support for her husband and for Maduro’s ouster.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry argued this week that the Russian military personnel who arrived in Venezuela over the weekend had every right to be there.

In Moscow’s first comment on the deployment, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement late Tuesday that Russia had sent personnel “in strict accordance” with the Venezuelan constitution and a bilateral agreement on military cooperation.

She did not say how many troops Russia has sent.

Vice President Mike Pence called Russian activity in Venezuela a “provocation,” and the rift between the two nuclear powers over how to solve the crisis in Venezuela widened following Moscow’s move.

“The United States views Russia’s arrival of military planes this weekend as an unwelcome provocation and calls on Russia today to cease all support for the Maduro regime,” Pence said.

Rosales met with Trump, Pence and other officials, and called the Maduro regime a “terrible dictatorship.”

“Today, in Venezuela it is freedom or dictatorship, it is life or death,” Rosales said. “It is the children who are paying the price.”

Trump reassured her, saying, “We are with you 100 percent.”

The US was the first nation to recognize Guaidó as interim president, asserting that Maduro’s re-election last year was a sham, and has stepped up sanctions and other diplomatic measures in hopes of forcing him to give up power.

Among those at the White House meeting were the wife and sister of Roberto Marrero, a top aide to Guaidó who was taken from his home in the middle of the night by masked agents last week.

The Maduro government says he was the ringleader of a plot to bring hit men from Central America to Venezuela to carry out assassinations.

An estimated 3 million people have fled Venezuela.

With AP