Russia Sending Hypersonic Missiles to Venezuela?

The Oreshnik missile, translating as “hazel tree”, is capable of striking any target across the European continent in under an hour if launched from Russia or Belarus, according to Moscow.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has insisted that the missiles are so mighty that using several of them in a strike with conventional warheads would be just as catastrophic as a nuclear attack.

In a letter to the Russian president, Mr Maduro reportedly said that the Sukhoi fighters were “the most important deterrent the Venezuelan national government had when facing the threat of war”.

Caracas also reached out to China and Iran to upgrade its military capabilities and expand defensive ties, according to the paper.

The US deployment in the Caribbean Sea has been swelling for months as Washington dispatched fighter jets, warships, bombers, marines, drones and spy planes in a move that the US president claimed was necessary to sever the flow of drugs into the US.

More than a dozen US strikes on alleged drug traffickers, most of whom departed from Venezuelan shores, have killed more than 60 people since September.

Russia and Venezuela have celebrated close ties over the past two decades and signed a strategic partnership treaty in Moscow last year.

Mr Zhuravlyov, describing Russia on Tuesday as “one of Venezuela’s key military-technical partners”, said that it “supplies the country with almost the full range of weaponry”.

The nuclear missile, nicknamed Satan II, has been touted as the “world’s deadliest weapon”.