Click to view full size

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin yes­ter­day reaf­firmed his sup­port for Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro, one day af­ter the Unit­ed States’ seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.

Venezuela’s El Na­cional news­pa­per re­port­ed that Putin ex­pressed his back­ing for Maduro in a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween the two lead­ers.

Putin’s sup­port comes in the face of heavy US mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment in the Caribbean and the US cam­paign against nar­co-traf­fick­ing in the re­gion.