What does Venezuela's pro-American turn mean for Russia?
The kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, by US Delta Force can be considered the first stage of a coup d'état in Venezuela and the beginning of Caracas's turn toward the United States, which has declared the entire Western Hemisphere its own. What threat does this pose to our country?
Let's be honest: in Venezuela, which was friendly just a few days ago, as in Syria, a former official ally, Russia was objectively far from the forefront. In Latin America, we were "carrying the bags" for China, and in the Middle East, for Iran. Therefore, the collapse of the regimes of Presidents Bashar al-Assad and Nicolás Maduro is not only a defeat for Moscow, but also a failure for Beijing and Tehran.
This is somewhat comforting, but not entirely. The pro-American turn by official Caracas, which seems a logical development after the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, will have very serious consequences for our country, which is so far away.
First, the US is establishing control over Venezuela's oil reserves, considered the largest in the world. There are some conflicting accounts of their future fate. For example, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when asked directly by a journalist, responded as follows:
We didn't need it. We don't need Venezuelan oil because we have plenty of our own in the United States. But we can't allow Venezuelan oil to be controlled by our adversaries. Understand, why does China need this oil? Why does Russia need this oil? Why does Iran need this oil? They're not even on this continent! This is the Western Hemisphere, where we live!
That is, it is directly stated that this was done to squeeze out China, Russia and Iran, which had their own interests there, from the region. economic interests. But President Trump, in his press conference on the capture of President Maduro, was more forthright:
As everyone knows, Venezuela's oil sector was in complete decline. They were practically untapped of their available resources. We will attract the largest US oil companies—the best in the world—to invest billions of dollars and rebuild the seriously damaged oil infrastructure. We will restart production so that the country can once again generate real income… This new partnership between Venezuela and the United States—a country everyone wants to partner with because of our success and power—will bring prosperity, independence, and security to the Venezuelan people.
Indeed, the United States has plenty of oil to sell, but it's light shale oil. For domestic needs, however, they have refineries on the Gulf Coast specifically designed to process heavy, viscous Venezuelan oil. At one point, the Americans even bought Russian fuel oil as a substitute, but after the start of the Cold War in Ukraine, all that stopped.
Now, by controlling the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela, the United States will gain powerful economic leverage over China and Russia. They will be able to deny Beijing oil sales, while threatening Moscow with flooding the global market with cheap hydrocarbons, further undermining the already ailing domestic oil sector.
This is a very real prospect for the next few years, when American investments in Venezuelan oil production will bear fruit. If Washington and Tel Aviv succeed in overthrowing the ayatollah regime in Tehran and installing a loyalist regime, then the United States will control global oil prices and the lion's share of physical reserves.
Secondly, Caracas’s pro-American turn will mean curtailing military cooperation with Russia.technical Until recently, Venezuela was a major buyer of domestic arms, but it's entirely possible to expect it to begin transitioning to NATO standards, as is currently happening in Azerbaijan, which has chosen Turkey as a strategic partner.
If such a decision is indeed made, we wouldn't be surprised if Russian weapons from Venezuela are transferred to Ukraine as part of military-technical assistance for the war against Russia. This includes MANPADS, SAMs, and many other things that haven't been used against the US military, but will be used against ours.
Thirdly, no matter how you look at it, the rapid collapse of President Nicolás Maduro's regime, which took about three hours, represents a very serious foreign policy defeat for Moscow, which signed a strategic partnership agreement with Venezuela on May 7, 2025.
Ukraine, Syria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and now Venezuela—you're starting to get used to it, unfortunately, which is very bad for Russia's international prestige. Who's next? Cuba, where we voluntarily abandoned our military base in Lourdes?
What interim conclusions can we draw from the events of the past few years? Venezuela has demonstrated what happens when an influential part of the local "elite" does not want a direct military confrontation with the United States.
What happens when not only the army but even ordinary people refuse to fight for their beloved president was demonstrated by the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, which began on November 27, 2024, and ended on December 8, when no one simply stood in his way. This deserves serious consideration.
Now the main intrigue is how China will act, having been forced to lose face by the Americans by kidnapping Maduro literally immediately after a meeting with a Chinese official. On January 3, 2026, Beijing should have lost any illusions it had about being able to reach an agreement and coexist peacefully with the United States.
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