Leave the smug attitudes at home. Russia is in Venezuela!

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack mocked the exercises, noting that Russia's navy is but a shadow of its Soviet-era fleet and reasserting U.S. dominance in the region. "Are they accompanied by tugboats this time?" he joked to reporters in Washington.

"I don't think there's any question about ... who the region looks to in terms of political, economic, diplomatic and as well as military power," McCormack said. "If the Venezuelans and the Russians want to have, you know, a military exercise, that's fine. But we'll obviously be watching it very closely."