UN In the midst of the Venezuela crisis, Guterres asserts that “the power of the law must prevail.”
The nation’s leader was apprehended after a surprise nighttime attack on the capital. The next day, the invading force declares that it will govern the country indefinitely.
In February 2022, Vladimir Putin envisioned his full-scale invasion of Ukraine unfolding in this manner. Rather, in an operation widely denounced as unlawful, Donald Trump managed to remove Nicolás Maduro, the Kremlin’s longtime ally who is currently on trial in New York.
The pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Dva Mayora, which has strong ties to the Russian military, wrote, “The operation was carried out competently.”
This is probably just how our “special military operation” was supposed to go—quick, dramatic, and definitive. Referring to Russia’s head of general staff, it said, “It’s hard to believe [Valery] Gerasimov planned to be fighting for four years.”
Some pro-war advocates have publicly questioned how Russia’s projected blitzkrieg in Ukraine turned into a bloody and lengthy conflict as a result of such discourse.
Pro-Kremlin software businesswoman Olga Uskova expressed her “shame” for Russia given the seeming blatance of the US action.
UN chief deeply concerned
“Trump arrested Maduro and apparently concluded his own ‘special military operation’ in a single day,” she said.
Russia’s top propagandist and head of RT, Margarita Simonyan, also commented on Telegram, stating that Moscow has cause to “be jealous.”
In an effort to create a new axis that could oppose Washington, Venezuela worked for more than 20 years to build a network of anti-American friends, ranging from China and Russia to Cuba and Iran.
However, few serious experts ever anticipated Moscow would save Maduro in any significant sense, even if Russia’s foreign minister had pledged support for his dictatorship as recently as late December.
While bogged down in Ukraine, Russia has witnessed other important friends lose their positions of authority or drastically deteriorate over the past year, from Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to Iran’s growing weakness, exposing the boundaries of the Kremlin’s influence.
Actions.For logistical and technical considerations, it is just not possible to provide any meaningful aid to a nation so far away and operating in a radically different geopolitical environment.
Additionally, there is a more useful computation.
According to commentators, Putin’s top goal is Ukraine, and preserving good relations with Trump on that front far surpasses the outcome of Caracas. The Kremlin has no desire to take the chance of upsetting Trump over a far-off theater, despite Moscow’s promises to support Maduro.
“At the moment, Putin and Trump are concentrating on Ukraine, a much more significant subject for Moscow. Furthermore, despite the Kremlin’s sympathies for Caracas, a far wider strategic game with a crucial partner is unlikely to be upset about what it views as a secondary concern, according to Lukyanov.
However, Moscow bears a number of real expenses as a result of losing Venezuela. Large portions of the Venezuelan armed forces’ equipment, including cutting-edge Russian-built systems given over the previous ten years, may be made available to American military and defense experts if a US-friendly government were to take power in Caracas.
These include an unspecified quantity of Pantsir and Buk-M2 systems transferred in late 2025, as well as S-300VM air defense systems delivered in 2013.
Additionally, Moscow has given Venezuela loans totaling billions of dollars, most of which are now unlikely to be repaid.
In Moscow, however, there is space for a depressing type of optimism. They contend that Trump’s abduction of Maduro could deal the ultimate blow to the rules-based international order and bring about a more blatantly 19th-century-style world, where the world is split into competing spheres of influence and power, not law, determines outcomes—a model long supported by Russia.
One of Russia’s most hawkish voices and former president, Dmitry Medvedev, claimed that Team Trump is “tough and cynical in advancing its country’s interests.” They freely acknowledge that the removal of Maduro had nothing to do with drugs, only with oil. It is obvious that the law of the strongest has greater authority than regular justice.
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