Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro expressed frustration with the performance of the Caracas Lions baseball team, who have lost seven of their last 10 games in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League, during the reporting window of November 4th, 2025, 3:45 AM to 4:45 AM UTC. "What's wrong with Caracas, okay? What's wrong with the owners of Caracas?" Maduro stated, according to a social media post on X by Darvinson Rojas. This public criticism of the baseball team comes as previous reports indicated heightened geopolitical tensions in the region. Venezuelan military sources had reported the deployment of a Russian Buk-M2E anti-aircraft missile system near the capital, Caracas, in preparation for a possible U.S. attack. This deployment was stated to increase the threat to U.S. air operations. Russian official Alexei Zhuravlev confirmed Russia's supply of weapons to Venezuela, not ruling out the provision of the "Oreshnik" system. Further context from earlier reporting includes increased U.S. naval activity, with the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group moving approximately 390 kilometers from Gibraltar. The U.S. Navy vessel USNS Waters (T-AGS-45) arrived off the coast of Ponce, Puerto Rico, for submarine navigation system testing and ballistic missile flight test support. In unrelated maritime activity, the Portuguese Navy intercepted a narco-submarine carrying 1.7 tons of cocaine bound for Europe, detaining four Venezuelan crew members. Amidst these developments, a purported satellite image of the USS Ford carrier at 30 knots was debunked as an AI-extended image dated March 19, 2023. Separately, a U.S. Air Force C-32B Gatekeeper aircraft arrived in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on October 30th.
