After months of secret negotiations with Venezuela and massing forces in the Caribbean, the US launched a strike campaign and raid to decapitate the country’s leadership. The results were swift. By the end of the brief operation US forces captured Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro and his wife and brought them to face trial in the United States.
While some invoke the precedent of the 1989 US invasion of Panama to capture Manuel Noriega, the Venezuela operation is unprecedented. It centered on the capture of a foreign leader (regardless of his lack of legitimacy) to bring him before a fully domestic court, rather than an international tribunal.
Moreover, the Trump administration articulated various reasons for the intervention. These included the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking, a police action (to capture Maduro), and regime change in Venezuela.
One reason among others was the expulsion of a perceived pro-China, pro-Iran, and pro-Russia regime from the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, since its economic downturn, Venezuela has been largely isolated due to the dismal human rights record of the Maduro regime. Partners such as Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran have served as a lifeline for Caracas, inviting great-power competition into the region.
Despite the economic relevance of China and the political projection of Iran, the key defense and security partner for Caracas has been Russia. In 2019 and 2024, the Russian state-controlled Wagner Group deployed to Venezuela to ensure the regime’s survival, and intelligence assets and officers have operated in the country for several years. So, what does Maduro’s ousting represent for Moscow?
Regional Bust
Venezuela represents for the Kremlin a venue to respond to perceived US moves in Russia’s near abroad. As Ariel González Levaggi and Vladimir Rouvinski argue, Latin America serves as Russia’s strategic mirror, intended for acts of «symbolic reciprocity.» This framework also enables long-distance moves that validate Moscow’s claims to great-power status. Caracas was significant in this framework but had lost relevance in recent years.
On the one hand, Venezuela is a major country in South America with large mineral and energy resources. In the 2000s, under Hugo Chávez, Venezuela pursued an ambitious regional agenda that dovetailed with Russia’s increasingly confrontational policy toward the US. Despite its severe weaknesses under Maduro, the potential for Caracas to return to regional leadership was not inconceivable, especially before 2020.
Venezuela also acted as a regional champion for Russia’s reach into Latin America, advocating for perspectives compatible with Moscow’s priorities. In turn, Venezuelan soil has been used by Russia’s intelligence and military, expanding the country’s power projection into this region far from Moscow.
On the other hand, Maduro was, like Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, an increasingly awkward piece in Russia’s global foreign policy. Venezuela’s economic and social collapse had seriously eroded Caracas’s value for Moscow, including on the regional stage. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, exchanges between Moscow and Caracas have lacked significance in the transformed, post-2022 strategic landscape for Moscow.
The economic picture is also ambiguous. In the 2000s, Caracas was a large arms buyer from Russia, but no longer. While Venezuela has been a key link in Moscow’s sanctions-evasion schemes, the weight of these exchanges pales in comparison with those carried out with China, India, Türkiye, and others. Issues such as corporate and sovereign debt will continue to haunt the Russia-Venezuela relationship, but these can be pursued with any regime following Chavista rule.
Overall, the loss of Venezuela would be a net negative for Russia, especially in terms of regional clout, but hardly a dramatic setback for Moscow’s global foreign policy.
Global Boom
While the regional picture presents a few negatives for Russia, the global repercussions of the intervention are more ambiguous, with some positives for Moscow.
There is no question that Russia’s reputation as a reliable ally of other rogue regimes has taken a hit—previously in Syria and now in Venezuela. Some reports suggested that Russian military personnel deployed to Venezuela in late 2025, potentially for regime-security missions, in a would-be replay of 2019 and 2024. Given the stated US strategy of provoking an insurrection against Maduro, deploying security personnel would have been a relevant response by Russia to keep him in place. However, this amounted to little when Washington shifted to direct military action, which exposed the weakness of Russian defense and security support.
This assessment deserves nuance, however. For isolated regimes such as Maduro’s, or those in the Sahel and North Korea, Russia remains among their few options for defense and security partnerships. Moreover, the shortcomings of Venezuela’s defense cannot be fully attributed to Moscow’s inaction or the quality of its weapons. To a large extent, it was regime divisions and Venezuelan counterintelligence failures that precipitated Maduro’s defeat. Allies help those who help themselves.
There are some potential upsides for Moscow, especially in the medium term. The US operation may herald a world more in tune with the Kremlin’s worldview. The Venezuelan intervention is the most tangible expression of the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. The operation also confirms that the contents of the controversial 2025 US National Security Strategy were not just a signal but a statement of intent—namely, that Washington must prioritize its «pre-eminence» in the Western Hemisphere.
For Russia, this is a win. Indeed, the Trump corollary validates the existence of «spheres of influence» led by major powers, which has been a leading item in Moscow’s foreign policy. Instead of defending a world defined by sovereign equality among states, the Trump corollary can be construed as validating Russia’s claims that certain states (especially those with which it shares a border, such as Ukraine) are less sovereign.
Moreover, the Venezuela intervention confirms that the US is focused on hemispheric affairs in a zero-sum calculation with other regions. Indeed, the massing of forces in the Caribbean took place as the US reduced its military presence in Romania and the Mediterranean. At the time, these were weak signals, but now they can be seen as part of a real trend. The danger is that Russia may interpret these moves as Washington giving a green light for the Kremlin to pursue its great-power ambitions in Europe unobstructed by US forces.
Finally, Russian propagandists will take every opportunity to exploit perceived US aggressions worldwide. All Russian overt, state-controlled, and covert channels are hard at work portraying Washington as imperialistic and aggressive. In turn, the likely flare-up of anti-Americanism in Latin America and worldwide will also benefit Russia.
Taken together, it can be said that Moscow lost a partner in Caracas but gained a like-minded government in Washington.
Missing Ends
In the current US-Venezuela juncture, we are just at the beginning. The stated US ambition of controlling Venezuelan oil raises questions about the scope and final goals of the mission. The possibility of a subsequent intervention against Cuba further complicates the regional outlook.
The best-case realistic scenario for Venezuela would be that of the Syrian transition—namely, maintaining a modicum of national unity under a government pursuing a new foreign policy. Like in Syria itself, this scenario does not imply the complete exit of Russian interests from the country. Crucially, Chavista successors will remain in a tense game of co-optation by and resistance against the US, which will offer opportunities for Russia to remain relevant.
A scenario of Venezuelan descent into further chaos or even civil war would create instability that any actor would struggle to profit from. To that extent, and like in Syria, Russia would likely lean toward maintaining a status quo it can work with rather than reversing it.
