When U.S. forces struck Venezuela on Saturday, taking President Nicolas Maduro and his wife into custody, they landed a considerable blow against Russia’s foreign policy in Latin America. But that single strike does not tell the entire story of how the events in Venezuela affect Russia’s interests.
It remains unclear how the aftermath of this operation will unfold and who will control Venezuela in the future, but it’s not too soon to assess the net impact on Russia. The accounting for Moscow contains significant items on the negative side of the ledger: Venezuela has been an important foothold for both projecting Russian influence in South America and showing the world that Moscow still wields global reach. Still, on balance and in the long run, the U.S. intervention in Venezuela is a net gain for Russia.
By Russia, to be clear, I am referring to the Kremlin, not the Russian people, and specifically to Russian interests as viewed by President Vladimir Putin, who is now committed to a strategy of aggressive expansionism and international norm-busting.
Against the backdrop of that strategy, the costs of losing Caracas as a partner are plain to see. Russia invested heavily in bolstering Maduro and the late President Hugo Chavez before him. Starting under Chavez, whom Putin met in person several times, Russia viewed Venezuela as a beachhead in the Americas. It was something of a riposte to Washington’s support for independent-minded governments in the former Soviet Union. To Putin, the territories of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire it essentially recreated were rightfully Moscow’s sphere of influence. His involvement in South America amounted to payback for what he viewed as U.S. meddling in Russia’s “near abroad.”
Over the past two decades, Russia extended multiple financial lifelines to Venezuela, including billions in credit that Caracas used to buy Russian weapons as well as huge sums invested by Russian oil companies to keep Venezuela’s tattered oil industry afloat. The two countries also backed each other in diplomatic arenas. So losing Venezuela would not only weaken Russia’s power projection but also wipe out that investment.
Also troubling for Russia is the successful U.S. operation to capture Maduro, which sent a strong message to other current or would-be Russian allies: They too could pay a high price for aligning with Washington’s foes, and when they do, Russia will do little to protect them besides releasing a strongly worded condemnation. Even more unsettling for Moscow, the raid showed that the U.S. still has a highly skilled military machine and is prepared to use it.
These are very significant minuses for Russia. But there are also considerable benefits to the events of the past week.
Trump’s framing of his aspirations for Venezuela amounts to a neatly wrapped gift for Moscow and Beijing.
To begin with, the U.S. raid in Caracas strengthens Putin’s theory of the world and undermines U.S. criticism of his invasion of Ukraine. Putin wanted to capture the Ukrainian president and take over Ukraine. Trump has now captured the Venezuelan president and—falsely, for now—claimed the U.S. controls Venezuela.
There are big differences, of course. Russia is slaughtering Ukrainian civilians and denies Ukraine’s very existence. And Ukraine’s president enjoys democratic legitimacy, unlike Maduro. But the parallels are unmistakable.
Above all, Trump has tacitly endorsed Putin’s favored notion of spheres of influence. He is implementing the policy of overwhelming dominance over the Western Hemisphere articulated in the recently released National Security Strategy, even as he creates geopolitical distance with the other Western powers, particularly in Europe. This shift is music to Putin’s ears, not to mention those of Xi Jinping, who views East Asia as China’s own sphere of influence. Trump’s approach not only aligns with Xi and Putin’s preferred framing of a global balance of power, but also implicitly limits Washington’s influence.
Another major gain for Russia and other authoritarian powers is the way Trump has articulated the goals of the operation, discarding any pretense that Maduro’s removal was part of an effort to reinstate democracy and protect the rights of the Venezuelan people from a brutally repressive regime.
The U.S. could have conducted the very same operation to capture Maduro, but then insisted the Venezuelan opposition—which won a landslide victory in last July’s presidential election but was denied power—be involved in the post-Maduro transition as the rightful government.
Instead, the operation has been justified using an unalloyed “might makes right” worldview. Since the raid, Trump has talked continuously about taking Venezuela’s oil, while flippantly dismissing the opposition and its leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado. In doing so, Trump is surrendering one of the most powerful weapons in the U.S. and Western geopolitical arsenal: the soft power derived from their respect for democratic freedoms around the world, even if it was often opportunistic and inconsistent.
Instead, Trump’s framing of his aspirations for Venezuela amounts to a neatly wrapped gift for Moscow and Beijing, which have long claimed that when the West speaks of democracy and human rights, it is using those ideals as window dressing for efforts to thwart its adversaries.
The extreme unilateralism of the strike on Venezuela also creates a relative advantage for Russia. Once again, Trump discarded one of the most potent elements of U.S. power: its global network of alliances. Washington could have prepared the diplomatic ground ahead of the strike to secure backing from its top allies, or even launched a concerted campaign just after it captured Maduro to do so.
Could it have obtained support from its allies and partners? In all likelihood, yes. Even though the operation would have been controversial under any circumstances, a significant number of democracies would have applauded the removal of the head of a brutal, illegitimate regime if the U.S. had expended the necessary effort to enlist them. Even absent such an effort, many did so in their public declarations following the raid, even as they deplored its impact on the international order.
Instead, Washington completely ignored their views, adding to the growing distance between the U.S. and its allies. That is yet another gift to Russia as well as America’s other foes and rivals. There’s no question that by taking out Maduro, Trump wrecked a piece of Putin’s geopolitical strategy, dealing a harsh blow to Moscow. But the larger picture shows that the benefits to Russia exceed the costs.
Frida Ghitis is WPR’s senior columnist and a contributor to CNN and The Washington Post. Her WPR column appears every Thursday. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads at @fridaghitis.