How Maduro’s Capture Puts Putin on the Defensive

Russia is being pushed back toward its own borders, toward a narrower sphere of action, at the exact moment it needed room to maneuver

By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0

There’s a temptation to see anything that Trump does as the actions of a lawless, self-interested grifter, out to enrich only himself and those most loyal to him.

That may be entirely true, but it does not mean that his actions here cannot create unexpected value over there. Two things can be true at the same time.

Sure, Trump’s actions in Venezuela likely violated numerous domestic and international laws; but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the relatively bloodless operation weakened Ukraine’s greatest enemy… the shirtless equine aficionado himself, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, jerkoff-in-chief of the Russian Federation.

For years, Venezuela was Russia’s closest, ugliest, and most inconvenient middle finger to Washington. Not so much because Caracas was powerful, competent, or particularly useful on its own, but because it existed where Moscow was not supposed to exist at all.

Kind of like a spider in your house that most people look at and ignore because it’s just chilling in the corner, not bothering anybody… but also, presumably, single-handedly responsible for all the drugs coming into the US. Fucking spiders, man. I’m telling ya.

Maduro, (and earlier Chavez), were to Putin what Castro was to Khrushchev: Useful idiots.

Now Nicolás Maduro is gone. Removed in a five‑hour operation that showed just how proficient the United States has become at snatch and grab shenanigans; I credit the Global War on Terror, or as my fellow post 9/11 veterans affectionally call it: the G-WOT.

That’s what happens when you spend twenty years giving special operations all the Infinity Stones, at the expense of the regular forces.

Anyways, Maduro is sitting in US custody, his regime decapitated before breakfast arepa, and the ripple effects are already reaching Moscow.

This is not about sympathy for Maduro. The man ran a narco‑state wrapped in revolutionary slogans and hollow elections. This is about what his removal does to Vladimir Putin’s global strategy at exactly the wrong moment.

Because Venezuela was never the prize. Venezuela was the platform.

And Putin just lost it.

Venezuela Was Russia’s Shortcut Around Geography

Russia is not a global power in the way the United States is a global power. It is a regional power with nuclear weapons, energy leverage, and world’s biggest asshat with a long memory of imperial humiliation.

Every time Moscow tries to project power beyond its immediate neighborhood, it has to cheat. It has to use proxies, intelligence services, arms sales, and relationships with regimes that are isolated enough to need Russian protection. Kind of like the Italian mafia in NYC: “Maybe we, uh, come in and break a few things if you don’t pay us the protection money? Hey fat Tony, forgetaboutit. Bada bing.” (It sounded funnier in my head than it reads on screen.)

Venezuela fit the “isolationist regime in need of protection” perfectly.

Under Hugo Chávez and later Nicolás Maduro, Caracas offered Moscow three things Russia could not build on its own in the Americas.

First, proximity. Russian intelligence didn’t need to sneak into the Western Hemisphere when it had a front-row seat in Caracas. The FSB and GRU were embedded. The country offered Russia a launchpad for everything from SIGINT intercepts of US naval movements in the Caribbean to human intelligence collection on diplomatic, economic, and military activity in Central and South America.

No need for forward basing rights when you can quietly rent geography from a desperate autocrat. At one point, Russia even secured landing rights for Tu-160 Blackjack bombers, strategic nuclear-capable platforms, just 1,200 miles from Miami.

Proximity was power. And it was cheap.

Second, legitimacy theater. The Kremlin has always craved the optics of parity. And nothing sells parity like putting Russian flags on ships, bombers, and diplomats in America’s backyard.

Venezuela allowed Moscow to stage those theatrics. Naval port calls in La Guaira. Joint air defense exercises. Military advisors “training” local forces on S-300 systems they barely had the personnel to maintain.

It didn’t matter that Venezuela wasn’t exactly Warsaw Pact 2.0. What mattered was the photo ops. Every handshake between Russian generals and Bolivarian cronies became a propaganda tool to say: “Look, we’re not isolated. We’re still in the game.”

Third, leverage. This is where it got strategic.

Every time Washington tightened the screws, whether over Crimea, MH17, or the invasion of Ukraine, Russia could flash its Venezuela card.

It wasn’t subtle. State media would highlight Russian warships docking in the Caribbean just as new sanctions were announced. Lavrov would fly into Caracas or Havana as if to say, “The spider is on the move.”

The Kremlin understood escalation ladders, and Venezuela gave it a rung in America’s backyard. Not to launch a war, but to create noise, muddy alliances, and force D.C. to look three directions at once: East, West… and South.

Now that leverage is gone.

The listening posts? Burned and likely compromised.

The optics? Shattered by a five-hour decapitation mission the whole world watched.

The pressure valve? Ripped off the pipeline.

Russia’s illusion of reach took a body blow on January 3. And Putin knows it.

One mistake analysts keep making is assuming Putin reacts emotionally to the loss of allies. He does not. He reacts transactionally.

Maduro was not beloved in Moscow. Chávez had charisma and ideological utility. Maduro had corruption, paranoia, and diminishing returns. By the end, he was less a revolutionary partner and more a liability with oil fields.

But even expendable assets have value. Ask any infantryman.

Russia sold Venezuela more than $20 billion in military equipment over two decades. That included fighter aircraft, armored vehicles, electronic warfare systems, and critically, long‑range air defense like the S‑300VM.

They tied Venezuelan officers to Russian training pipelines. They embedded Russian technicians on the ground. They created long‑term dependency.

Now that entire structure is exposed.

If a post‑Maduro government opens its books and its bases to US or allied auditors, Russian military credibility takes another hit. Not on paper. In hardware. In code. In radar signatures.

For a defense industry already hemorrhaging reputation after Ukraine, this is catastrophic.

Putin and Nicolás Maduro on 10 October 2019By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0

Caracas Was the Cornerstone. Pull It, and the House Wobbles

The real danger for Moscow isn’t just what happened in Venezuela, it’s what might unravel because of Venezuela.

For over a decade, Caracas has been the quartermaster for Latin America’s authoritarian remnants. It didn’t matter that Venezuela’s economy was a walking corpse. What mattered was that it still pumped oil.

And with enough of it, you could keep Nicaragua’s lights on, prop up Cuba’s failing grid, and launder money across a hemisphere thick with hungry politicians and soft banks.

Venezuela has supplied subsidized fuel, under-the-table cash, and enough political oxygen to keep Havana and Managua breathing. They didn’t thrive, but they didn’t collapse either.

Now imagine all of that vanishing.

If Venezuela’s regime is distracted, disarmed, or even mildly disrupted, Cuba and Nicaragua feel it first.

Both regimes are already teetering. Cuba is juggling blackouts, food shortages, and an internal opposition more vocal than at any point in the last decade. Nicaragua, under Daniel Ortega, governs by fear but lacks the infrastructure to suppress dissent and survive without outside help.

And make no mistake, Putin was counting on that triad. Not just for influence, but for presence. Havana gave them political legitimacy. Managua offered airstrips and rhetorical support. Caracas handed them geography. Lose Caracas, and the other two start asking hard questions.

This is why Washington doesn’t need to roll tanks into every capital. One clean strike in Venezuela produces cascading effects. Strategic efficiency at its finest: decapitate the logistics hub, and the dependent regimes start bleeding internally. It’s the kind of “influence warfare” that would make Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Domino Theory crawl out of his grave and slow clap.

For Putin, this is a strategic dilemma.

Does he divert scarce political capital to shore up three failing client states half a world away? Does he funnel cash and diplomatic muscle into Havana or Managua while Ukraine is eating artillery shells by the ton?

Or does he cut them loose and hope nobody notices?

I think it’s the latter.

Either way, his Western Hemisphere bluff just got called, and the table suddenly feels empty.

But, this is the part many Russia watchers miss.

Putin does not have infinite bandwidth. The war in Ukraine is an economic, demographic, and political gravity well that pulls resources inward.

Every artillery shell fired in Donetsk is one not produced for export. Every intelligence officer focused on Kyiv is one not managing Havana or Caracas. Every ruble spent subsidizing the illegitimate Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), is one more ruble not rescuing allies abroad.

That is why Russia did not intervene meaningfully to save Maduro.

Not because it approved of the operation. Not because it secretly welcomed it. But because it could not stop it without weakening its primary effort.

And Putin knows that Ukraine is existential. Venezuela never was.

So, there is a tempting theory circulating that Putin might trade influence in the Americas for concessions in Ukraine. A quiet understanding.

You take your hemisphere. We take ours.

I even heard a well-known geopolitical analyst I watch on YouTube suggest that great power competition is dead. Now, he claimed, the US is solely focused on the Western hemisphere, Russia gets Europe, and China expands in East Asia. A globe carved up into thirds.

That theory misunderstands Trump.

Yes, he wants American Hegemony in both North and South America, but he will not permit Taiwan, South Korea, or Japan to fall to China. There’s simply too much money to be made from those allies.

Besides, Washington does not need Russian permission to operate in the Western Hemisphere. The revamped Monroe Doctrine, or whatever the hell Trump is calling it these days, (I refuse to call it the Donroe Doctrine… it’s like the White House is full of fucking toddlers) is not a negotiation. It is an assertion backed by force.

And Ukraine is not a bargaining chip Putin can cash in easily. It is a war he started, misjudged, and now cannot end on his own terms without admitting failure.

Giving up Venezuela buys Putin nothing tangible. It does not stop Ukrainian resistance. It does not lift sanctions. It does not restore his military’s reputation.

It only confirms that Russia cannot defend its friends when it counts.

A US Marine with Kilo Company, Battalion Landing Team 3/6, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), takes aim with a M27 infantry automatic rifle during urban operations on Camp Santiago, Puerto Rico, Dec. 11, 2025. US military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the US Southern Command mission, Department of War-directed operations, and the president’s priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking and protect the homeland. (US Marine Corps photo) Public domain

The Precedent Problem, Reversed

Much has been made of the idea that capturing Maduro sets a precedent Russia could exploit against Ukraine’s leadership.

That argument sounds clever. It is also hollow.

Russia has already labeled Ukraine’s president illegitimate. It has already attempted decapitation strikes. It has already kidnapped Ukrainian officials and civilians.

The restraint shown in Venezuela actually highlights the contrast.

Ukraine is fighting an invasion. Venezuela hosted a criminal regime, protected by hollow institutions and foreign patrons like China, Russia, and Iran.

Conflating the two is narrative laundering.

If anything, the operation in Venezuela reinforces a message Moscow does not want reinforced: the United States can still plan, integrate, and execute complex operations at scale, while Russia struggles to coordinate battalion-level assaults without Ukraine kicking their ass halfway across Christendom.

There is also a quieter, more brutal consequence.

If, and it’s a pretty big if, the United States gains sustained access to Venezuelan oil production and modernizes it, global supply increases. Prices fall. Russian revenue tightens.

I say “if” because while Venezuela sits on 20% of the global oil supply, it only contributed 1% to global production due to blatant mismanagement. It would take American oil companies decades of government-subsidized infrastructure-building to get the output moving again.

More likely, Putin will be long since passed away from old age before Exxon-Mobile finishes their first feasibility study.

Still, it’s worth remembering that energy exports are the backbone of Russia’s war economy. Not ideology. Not patriotism. Oil and gas.

Every barrel Venezuela puts back on the market under US-friendly management is a pressure point on Moscow’s budget. That matters far more than any diplomatic statement.

This is where geopolitics becomes arithmetic.

Putin was mentored by Yevgeny Primakov, the architect of Russia’s post‑Cold War multipolar strategy. The idea was simple: if Russia cannot dominate globally, it can still complicate globally.

That strategy requires outposts. Distractions. Places to apply pressure asymmetrically.

Venezuela was one of the last.

Syria is gone; Putin lost his chum Bashir al-Assad. Iran is constrained and straining under the weight of its own hardline dickhead regime. Russia’s African partners are transactional and unreliable. Now Latin America is slipping away.

Russia is being pushed back toward its own borders, toward a narrower sphere of action, at the exact moment it needed room to maneuver.

That is not collapse. But it is contraction.

And contraction is dangerous for regimes built on momentum.

Putin will not panic. He will not lash out theatrically over Maduro. He will absorb the loss, look for alternative channels, and attempt to salvage influence through Venezuela’s military and security services.

But the reality is unavoidable.

Russia’s ability to project power into the Western Hemisphere just took a serious hit. Not because Maduro mattered, but because what he represented mattered.

For Ukraine, this matters too.

Every Russian ally lost.

Every Russian revenue stream pressured.

Every Russian myth punctured.

Wars are not won in isolation. They are won when your opponent runs out of options faster than you do.

And right now, Putin’s options are narrowing.

The sun has not set on Russia’s ambitions. But the shadow it casts across the Americas just got a lot shorter.

And that changes the board everywhere else.

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