Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said Sunday that his government is preparing to fight if the United States intervenes in Venezuelan territory.

“I tell the imperialists of the north that we are preparing and we are going to fight, we are going to fight if you dare to set foot in Venezuela,” he said in an assessment of the military actions, broadcast by the state channel Venezolana de Television (VTV).

He also noted that Washington is applying a “siege against the homeland” through what he called “gross and vulgar sanctions” and a “commercial persecution,” with the aim of provoking an “internal rupture” in Venezuela.

Padrino indicated that there are 10,380 troops deployed throughout the country “fulfilling different missions,” to which some 15,000 FANB officers and “combatant militiamen” in the states of Tachira and Zulia, bordering Colombia.

The United States and its war against the Tren de Aragua and the Cartel of the Suns

The United States announced the mobilization of three guided-missile destroyers and 4,000 marines near the border with Venezuela. On Tuesday, it reported the dispatch of two more ships, with no details of their arrival date so far.

In February, it designated eight Latin American organized crime groups as “global terrorist” organizations, including the Venezuelan criminal group Tren de Aragua. In July, it added the Cartel of the Suns to the list, led according to Washington by Nicolas Maduro, for whom it recently doubled the reward to $50 million for information leading to his capture.