In January 2026, U.S. forces carried out an operation to seize and remove Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela. For Russia, the episode represented far more than the loss of a friendly leader. In a matter of hours, Washington’s “special military operation” in Caracas laid bare the real limits of Russian influence in the region.
Despite two decades of intensive military-technical cooperation and billions of dollars poured into relations with the Venezuelan regime, Moscow proved unable to shape events. Russia was simply too distant—geographically and politically.
Russian Assets Before 2022
By the time the full-scale war against Ukraine began, Moscow possessed a relatively modest but carefully cultivated and politically visible network of influence in Latin America. While its economic footprint was clearly smaller than that of the United States, China, or Europe, Russia enjoyed certain advantages: durable ties with key political allies (above all Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela); pragmatic relationships with Brazil, Mexico, and other major states; experience in military-technical cooperation; and a proven ability to exploit anti-American sentiment without the burden of maintaining an expensive, Soviet-style alliance system.
Venezuela remained Russia’s principal asset in the region. The foundations of the special relationship were laid by Hugo Chávez, who, after taking power in 1999, sought to reduce his country’s dependence on the United States and diversify its foreign ties. For the Kremlin, Chávez was close to an ideal partner: he commanded substantial oil revenues, bought Russian weapons, and openly endorsed the Kremlin’s vision of a multipolar world. Chávez’s confrontation with Washington allowed Russia to frame its own return to Latin America as a symmetrical response to U.S. policy in the post-Soviet space.
The scale of military-technical cooperation was impressive. Between 2005 and 2016, Russia and Venezuela signed more than 40 arms contracts worth roughly $ 11.5 billion. Russian equipment accounted for over 70 percent of Venezuela’s arms imports from 2001 to 2018. Caracas acquired Su-30MKV fighters, Mi-17 and Mi-35 helicopters, T-72 tanks, multiple-launch rocket systems, Kalashnikov rifles, and S-300VM and Buk-M2 air-defense systems.
Russia extended loans, serviced the equipment it supplied, trained Venezuelan personnel, and periodically deployed strategic bombers and naval vessels to the country. The military utility of these deployments was limited, but their symbolic value was considerable. Venezuela became a textbook case of Russia’s policy of symbolic reciprocity: if the United States acted in Russia’s sphere of interest, Moscow would make a demonstrative appearance in America’s “backyard.”
Behind the striking geopolitical imagery, however, lay a far less impressive reality. Cooperation was dogged by persistent failures, opacity, and corruption scandals. The saga of the Kalashnikov rifle and ammunition factory is especially revealing. Agreements were signed under Chávez, yet the project dragged on for nearly two decades, deadlines were repeatedly missed, and funds vanished. In the end, the factory became a near-caricature of Russian-Venezuelan partnership: a project meant to symbolize a strategic alliance that instead served mainly as a vehicle for corrupt rent-seeking.
Oil formed the second pillar of the relationship. Rosneft and other Russian companies took part in joint projects with PDVSA and extended advance financing to Maduro’s regime against future oil deliveries. As Venezuela’s economy deteriorated, Russian involvement grew increasingly defensive: protecting existing investments and trying to recover debts took precedence over business expansion. The prospects for recovering those funds after the 2026 seizure of Russian assets announced by Marco Rubio now appear highly doubtful.
Russian-Venezuelan economic ties never lived up to the accompanying geopolitical rhetoric. Outside the military and energy sectors, trade stayed modest and relations remained sharply asymmetrical. For Moscow, however, the monetary dimension was never the decisive factor.
After Chávez’s death, Russia became one of Maduro’s chief international defenders. This role was especially visible in 2019, when Juan Guaidó declared himself interim president and won recognition from the United States and dozens of other countries. Moscow insisted on Maduro’s legitimacy and turned the Venezuelan crisis into another chapter in the global contest with Washington.
Russia used its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to shield Caracas diplomatically. In February 2019 it vetoed a U.S. draft resolution on Venezuela and tabled its own alternative. Russian military aircraft and specialists arrived in the country, while rumors circulated about the possible presence of Russian-linked private military contractors. Most of these reports lacked firm confirmation, yet the resulting uncertainty worked to Moscow’s advantage. Russia consistently conveyed the message that the cost of external intervention could prove far higher than it appeared.
Once Maduro survived the 2019 crisis, Russian backing became an integral part of the narrative of Chavista resilience. Caracas could point to the fact that it was not internationally isolated, while Moscow gained a reliable ally prepared to endorse its interpretation of major international conflicts.
Thus, before February 2022, Russia pursued two parallel tracks in Latin America. With the region’s larger states it maintained trade, engaged through BRICS, and conducted routine diplomacy. With left-wing, anti-American regimes—first and foremost Venezuela—it cultivated much closer political partnerships. It was the second track that created the illusion of Russian influence in the region.
Venezuela as a Tool Against Isolation
After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s objectives in Latin America shifted. Policy became less expansionist and more defensive. The Kremlin needed to show that Russia’s international isolation was limited and applied mainly to the United States, the EU, and their closest allies.
Venezuela immediately endorsed Moscow’s account of the war’s origins. As early as 25 February 2022, Caracas blamed the conflict on the United States and NATO. Venezuelan authorities also used events in Ukraine to reinforce their own worldview, portraying sanctions against Russia as a continuation of the same pressure previously applied to Venezuela.
Support from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua was insufficient on its own. Moscow therefore concentrated on the region’s larger states—countries that disapproved of Russian aggression yet were reluctant to join Western sanctions. The approach proved reasonably effective. Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and others preserved diplomatic and trade ties with Moscow. Latin American governments also refused to transfer Russian- or Soviet-made weapons to Ukraine. Ecuador provided a telling example: after plans surfaced to hand old Russian equipment to Washington (which could then forward it to Ukraine), Moscow applied economic and political pressure by banning imports of Ecuadorian bananas, a key export. Quito quickly reversed course.
Russia failed to legitimize the war, but it prevented Latin America from becoming part of a Western anti-Russian coalition. The Kremlin offered the region not an alliance with Moscow, but the right to remain non-aligned. In a region with deep historical suspicion of U.S. interventionism, this formula found takers.
Venezuela remained Moscow’s most consistent political partner in the region. It helped challenge the idea that sanctions represented a universal instrument of the “international community.” At the same time, Venezuela’s experience of surviving under sanctions offered Moscow practical lessons: both countries faced comparable problems—restricted access to SWIFT, difficulties insuring tankers and shipping oil, and the need for intermediaries and gray-market schemes.
The war sharply curtailed Russia’s capacity to support Caracas. Russia’s defense industry was fully redirected toward its own armed forces, causing a steep decline in maintenance of exported equipment, spare-parts deliveries, and training of foreign personnel. Caracas continued to demonstrate political loyalty, but the material substance of the partnership eroded rapidly.
It is therefore all the more striking that in 2025 the two sides chose to elevate relations still further. On 7 May, Vladimir Putin and Nicolás Maduro signed a Treaty on Strategic Partnership and Cooperation in Moscow covering political, economic, energy, and military-technical spheres. Moscow ratified the treaty at the end of October, and a month later the Russian government described Venezuela as “a reliable partner and ally of Russia in Latin America and the world.”
The war sharply curtailed Russia’s capacity to support Caracas. Russia’s defense industry was fully redirected toward its own armed forces, causing a steep decline in maintenance of exported equipment, spare-parts deliveries, and training of foreign personnel. Caracas continued to demonstrate political loyalty, but the material substance of the partnership eroded rapidly.
It is therefore all the more striking that in 2025 the two sides chose to elevate relations still further. On 7 May, Vladimir Putin and Nicolás Maduro signed a Treaty on Strategic Partnership and Cooperation in Moscow covering political, economic, energy, and military-technical spheres. Moscow ratified the treaty at the end of October, and a month later the Russian government described Venezuela as “a reliable partner and ally of Russia in Latin America and the world.”
That is why the events of January 2026 proved so damaging to Moscow’s reputation: only a few months separated the solemn proclamation of “strategic partnership” from the demonstration of its inability to protect its ally.
The Capture of Maduro and the Limits of Russian Protection
The U.S. operation to seize Maduro dismantled the notion that proximity to Moscow enhances a regime’s ability to withstand the United States. Venezuela possessed S-300VM and Buk-M2 systems and other Russian air-defense equipment, yet none of it stopped the American operation. Possible explanations include the technical condition of the systems, lack of regular maintenance and spare parts, inadequate crew training, successful suppression of radar coverage, command failures, and other factors. Even a fully serviceable S-300 is not an impenetrable shield on its own; effective air defense requires an integrated command structure, functioning radars, and well-trained operators.
The issue is not the inherent “uselessness” of Russian weapons. The reputational damage to Moscow lies elsewhere: years of military-technical cooperation and billions of dollars spent by Caracas on Russian arms failed to deliver their central political purpose—deterring an external threat. Whatever the final technical reconstruction of the U.S. operation may show, potential Russian partners saw the essential point: at the moment of decisive crisis, Moscow’s principal ally in the region proved defenseless.
The humanitarian response after the powerful earthquakes of 24 June 2026 was equally revealing. Many countries immediately dispatched rescuers, medical teams, and aid to Venezuela. Moscow, at the initial stage, merely stated its readiness to “promptly consider” Caracas’s request. Russian assistance eventually arrived, but only after a significant delay—once the most acute phase of the crisis had passed. Russia may have wished to react faster, but the new political reality no longer permitted it to operate in Venezuela as before.
The Kremlin’s reaction to Maduro’s capture was shaped largely by pragmatic calculations. Russia, deeply engaged in the war in Ukraine and seeking to improve relations with the Trump administration, could not afford open confrontation with the United States in Venezuela. Russian support can be useful in routine conditions and diplomatic crises, yet it does not constitute a reliable security guarantee when Washington decides to raise the stakes sharply.
At the same time, the American operation supplied the Kremlin with convenient propaganda material: Moscow can now argue that the United States itself has returned to a spheres-of-influence logic, thereby indirectly validating Russia’s view of the international order. This remains weak compensation for the loss of a key ally in Latin America.
The Return of the Monroe Doctrine
Developments in Venezuela coincided with a broader shift in U.S. policy. The Trump administration openly declared its intention to restore U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and revived an updated version of the Monroe Doctrine. Already in the summer of 2026, Pentagon officials publicly urged regional governments to endorse the doctrine and restrict the presence of “external powers.” China’s trade and investment positions, far stronger than Russia’s, remain Washington’s primary concern. Nevertheless, the new U.S. approach noticeably shrinks Moscow’s room for maneuver. Russia can no longer rely on the previous relative American indifference to its symbolic moves in the region.
Equally significant is the rightward political shift across Latin America itself. While segments of Europe’s right and far right view Putin as an ally against liberal globalism and a defender of “traditional values,” Latin American right-wing forces see Russia first and foremost as the longtime patron of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and local leftist movements.
Moscow spent decades cultivating ties with Latin American leftists precisely because their anti-Americanism provided a natural political foundation for cooperation. Relations with right-wing governments, such as Jair Bolsonaro’s in Brazil, could be pragmatic but never became strategic. For the overwhelming majority of the region’s new right-wing leaders, Washington remains the principal external partner. Transplanting the European model of engagement with the right onto Latin American soil is therefore unlikely to succeed for Moscow.
The New Reality
Maduro’s removal does not mean Russia will lose all interest in Latin America. It will retain its diplomatic presence, relations with Cuba and Nicaragua, trade with Brazil and Mexico, participation in BRICS, and contacts with leftist parties and movements. Some countries in the region will continue to reject anti-Russian sanctions—not out of affinity for Moscow, but from their own understanding of sovereignty and reluctance to follow Washington’s line automatically.
In the new environment, Russia’s most durable asset is likely to be its informational presence. Over the past two decades Moscow has built a noticeable Spanish-language media infrastructure in the region—from RT en Español and Sputnik to networks of local partners and numerous secondary channels. This is a relatively low-cost instrument: it does not require multi-billion-dollar loans, a permanent corps of specialists, or military protection of allies at critical moments.
Paradoxically, Washington’s return to spheres-of-influence rhetoric creates additional opportunities for Moscow. The U.S. operation in Venezuela and statements framing the Western Hemisphere as a zone of primary U.S. interest supply Russian information resources with ready-made material. Moscow no longer needs to prove the existence of “American imperialism”; it can simply quote official U.S. statements and point to American actions.
The principal objective will not be to make Latin Americans love Russia or support its war in Ukraine. A far more realistic goal is to stoke existing anti-American sentiment and deepen distrust of Washington. The Russian narrative can draw on themes long familiar in the region: the Monroe Doctrine, interventions, coups, sanctions, and the histories of Cuba, Panama, and Venezuela. Contemporary events will be placed within a long historical continuum of U.S. interference in regional affairs.
This approach also helps mitigate the challenge posed by the rightward turn. Even where right-wing governments are pro-American, significant parts of the population do not necessarily share that orientation. Russian information resources can address multiple audiences at once: anti-imperialist rhetoric for the left, narratives of “sovereignty protection” for nationalists, criticism of the liberal West for conservatives, and anti-elite or conspiratorial themes for broader publics.
Consequently, the loss of Maduro will not necessarily produce a proportional decline in Russian informational influence. The more assertively Washington claims an exclusive right to set the rules in the Western Hemisphere, the easier it becomes for Moscow to use U.S. actions as evidence of its own correctness.
At the same time, the era of expanding Russia’s material footprint in the region appears to have ended. Moscow lacks the resources to create a “new Venezuela.” Cuba is economically too weak, Nicaragua too small, and the region’s major states see little reason to convert relations with Russia into full strategic alliances.
In the coming years, therefore, Russian policy in Latin America is likely to shift from expansion to preservation of presence at minimal cost. Moscow will concentrate on diplomacy, the BRICS framework, niche commercial opportunities (such as agricultural fertilizer supplies), contacts with leftist political forces, and—above all—informational influence.
