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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Russian President Vladimir Putin held an "important telephone conversation" on December 11, a day after US forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry has described the US action as "brazen robbery and an act of international piracy."

The US has been applying pressure on Maduro's government, accusing it of being involved in drug trafficking. A fleet of US warships has formed a blockade in the Southern Caribbean since late August as it seeks to combat "narco-terrorism."