Moscow, Russia

The Kremlin on Tuesday denied informing the United States it was withdrawing personnel from Venezuela, as stated by US President Donald Trump.

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"This is apparently an indirect reference to some sources of information in newspapers because there have been no official messages from the Russian side about this and there couldn't have been any," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists. 

He confirmed that Russian military specialists are still in Venezuela "working on servicing equipment supplied earlier."

"This process is going according to plan. And what is meant by 'removed their people' we don't know," he said.

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Trump tweeted Monday during a state visit to Britain that "Russia has informed us that they have removed most of their people from Venezuela."

US-Russian tensions have spiked over the months-long standoff in Venezuela, where Washington has thrown its weight behind a campaign to oust the Moscow-backed socialist president, Nicolas Maduro.

Trump in March called on Russia to "get out" of Venezuela after Moscow -- in a significant show of solidarity for Maduro's badly isolated government -- deployed around 100 soldiers to the country.

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Russia's state defence contractor Rostec has played down any changes in deployment, dismissing a report in The Wall Street Journal saying that the overall Russian presence in Venezuela had been reduced from as many as 1,000 personnel to a few dozen.