Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López denounced this Sunday that the United States is carrying out"intelligence" flights against the South American country, in a context in which he asserted that Washington wants to justify a"military threat and intervention plan" to "displace President Nicolás Maduro."
In a press conference broadcast on the state-run Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) channel, Padrino López stated that"intelligence operations have always been carried out on U.S. Army aircraft" in the Caribbean, but added that recently they have gone from a daytime pattern to nighttime and early morning operations and"tripled, in August, intelligence and reconnaissance operations against Venezuela."
"In September, every day," he said.
For example, Padrino said that on Saturday night they detected tanker planes supplying fuel to the RC-135 spy aircraft.
The military chief noted that the United States passes through Venezuela's"flight information region" and "most of the time violates operational regulations because they fail to notify their flight plans, which can cause air accidents."
🚨 BREAKING NEWS | Vladimir Padrino, completely nervous, admits that the US has increased its military deployment and reconnaissance aircraft around Venezuela.
— JHON INFORMA (@JHONINFORMA92) September 14, 2025
The regime is panicking because it knows that international pressure is aimed directly at its downfall.#jhoninforma… pic.twitter.com/OZNt8Vt28e
He also mentioned several types of aircraft that have been identified, such as the Boeing RC-135, which is designed to"collect and process information in real time" and "its reach reaches Venezuelan territory" through, he stressed,"intelligence, electronic and signals systems, radars, cameras, advanced sensors."
"They're planes conducting intelligence, and we know it. Intelligence for what? They'll know; we're conducting our own internal intelligence processes," he said.
"Another aircraft that also passes very frequently (...) over the Caribbean near the Venezuelan coast is the E-3 Sentry AWACS," the military chief added in statements broadcast on state television.
"We're prepared. We take action, individually or collectively, for each flight. We know what they're doing. We know their deployment in the Caribbean Sea, with every intention of sowing war," he asserted.
In his opinion, this deployment"is looking for an incident" so that Venezuela falls into "the game of provocation" and allows the United States to "legitimately escalate" the "military conflict and produce the aggression" that they have been "announcing for a month."
The United States maintains eight military ships with missiles and a nuclear-powered submarine deployed near the Venezuelan coast under the pretext of combating drug trafficking, but Nicolás Maduro's government considers this an attempt to bring about"regime change" in the South American country.
This Saturday, the Venezuelan government stated that a U.S."destroyer" deployed eighteen troops with long weapons and seized the vessel on Friday, carrying"nine humble fishermen" who were in the "Venezuelan Exclusive Economic Zone."
Padrino López called this Sunday for "active resistance" and a "permanent offensive" against "the aggression and military threat of the greatest power, the most genocidal, the most bizarre in its principles, which is the northern power, the United States of America."
