Caracas. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said Sunday that the United States tripled its deployment of spy planes"against" Venezuela in August, in addition to the deployment of warships in the Caribbean, which Caracas calls a threat.

"Now they've moved from a daytime pattern to doing it at night and early in the morning, and they've tripled their intelligence and reconnaissance operations against Venezuela in August," Padrino said, giving an account of a military training session on Saturday to teach civilians how to shoot.

For example, Padrino said that on Saturday night they detected tanker planes supplying fuel to the RC-135 spy aircraft.

These aircraft are"designed to collect and process information in real time, up to 200 miles, meaning their range extends into Venezuelan territory," he added.

"Another aircraft that also passes very frequently (...) over the Caribbean near the Venezuelan coast is the E-3 Sentry AWACS," he added.

The day before, Caracas reported that U.S. military personnel detained a tuna fishing vessel sailing in the waters of the Venezuelan Caribbean for eight hours.

"We know about the deployment they have in the Caribbean Sea, with the full intention of sowing war in the Caribbean, a war that we Venezuelans don't want, and that the people of the Caribbean don't want," Padrino López stated.

The United States justifies the presence of military ships in the Caribbean for the fight against drugs.