However, this perfect script of “US soldiers acting without bloodshed and foreign bodyguards defecting” was completely torn apart by a statement issued from Havana just a few days later. There were no emotion, or overly passionate accusations contained in the statement, only the listing of thirty-two names of brave – but “dead” – Cuban soldiers. They were not traitors who have been bribed as Trump insisted, but Cuban soldiers stationed at the request of the Venezuelan government to serve as core bodyguards by Maduro’s side. Under the three-dimensional US siege involving more than 150 fighter jets and dozens of warships of the US military, more than 30 people used small arms (and naked eyes) to identify friend from foe inside and outside the Presidential Palace – resisting for a full 20 minutes despite the terrible odds, before all finally being killed. Along with the brave Cubans fell an equally brave twenty-three Venezuelan soldiers. The so-called “sterile kill” turned-out to be a chernal-ground paved in blood.