Our coverage of news events from around the world begins in Venezuela, where ongoing political and economic turmoil is growing internationally. Here’s what we mean. The United States and more than 50 other countries support Juan Guaido. He’s Venezuela’s opposition leader who declared himself its new temporary president in January. That followed last year’s disputed re-election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and a series of economic and humanitarian problems that are getting worse.

China, Iran, Cuba, and Russia are among a handful of countries that support President Maduro, who says he was fairly elected and that international assistance isn’t needed in Venezuela. Still, he appears to be getting some of that from Russia. Two of its military planes arrived in the South American nation recently. Russia says the deployment is legal and that it doesn’t change the balance of power in the region. The U.S. President Donald Trump says, quote, “Russia has to get out of Venezuela.” Things are heating up on the ground there.

Yesterday, Venezuela’s government banned Juan Guaido from running for public office for 15 years. That announcement came as Guaido’s been pushing for a major protest to try to get President Maduro out of office. So how does Russia factor in? Well, one way is the fact that for years, Russia has been loaning billions of dollars to Venezuela, but the deployment of Russian troops there is troubling countries like the U.S.