Russia: US Has Caused Billions of Damage to Venezuela

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia accused the United States of causing hundreds of billions of dollars of damage to Venezuela since 2013, adding that Washington was "picking the pockets" of the country, while “offering” humanitarian aid and "artificially provoking" a crisis to overthrow the legitimate government.

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“The U.S. is persistently shattering the situation in Venezuela. It deliberately provokes crisis around this country in order to change a legitimately elected leader for a U.S. protege,” said Nebenzia Wednesday during his speech before the U.N. Security Council meeting. Back in February, Nebenzia stated that the estimated damages are worth approximately US$345 billion.

The new remarks came as a response to U.S. Vice-president Mike Pence’s called to revoke the U.N. credentials of President Nicolas Maduro's government and to recognize lawmaker Juan Guaido, following Tuesday’s unprecedented and highly criticized decision from the Organization of American States (OAS) to recognize Guaido’s envoy.  

Venezuela’s Ambassador to the U.N. Samuel Moncada exhorted that “in their eagerness to destabilize the country, they sacrificed the fundamental charter of the organization and distorted the law.”

Meanwhile, the Russian official reminded that as the Trump administration continues its rant on the “humanitarian crisis,” the U.S. “is not settled with providing humanitarian aid to itself,” as “the impact of 'Maria' hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico in fall 2017 has not been completely mitigated.” 

Finalizing with some sound advice for the U.S. government and President Donald Trump, by saying that “If you want to ‘make America great again,’ wherein all of us have a genuine interest, then stop interfering in the internal affairs of others. You will be respected for that. You do not like others to interfere in your affairs, do you? No one does.