The lightning U.S. operation that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro is being seen by analysts as both a strategic benefit and a political burden for Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to an Associated Press account.
AP said the ouster of Maduro underscores what it described as another Kremlin failure to support an ally—an assessment made in the context of prior setbacks including the downfall of Syria’s former President Bashar Assad in 2024 and last year’s U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran. The story also framed the move as potentially leaving Russia with less leverage in the Western Hemisphere and less protection for billions of dollars it has invested in Venezuela’s oil industry.
At the same time, AP said President Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela are causing unease in Western nations and giving the Kremlin fresh talking points to defend its war in Ukraine. The article added that Trump’s interest in wresting control of Greenland from NATO ally Denmark could further distract Alliance members at a moment when U.S.-led efforts to broker peace in Ukraine are entering what it described as a pivotal stage.
Putin has not commented on the U.S. actions in Venezuela, AP reported. It said Russian diplomats denounced the operation as a blatant act of aggression. Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who serves as deputy on Putin’s presidential Security Council, rebuked Washington for trampling international law while also praising Trump’s posture toward U.S. interests.
AP quoted Medvedev as saying: “Even though Trump’s action is completely unlawful, he cannot be denied a certain consistency — he and his team are very aggressively upholding their country’s national interests.”
The account also tied the episode to another U.S. step. On Wednesday, AP said, the U.S. announced it seized two sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela, including one flagged to Russia in the North Atlantic.
To explain how Russia justifies its own approach to influence abroad, AP revisited the Kremlin’s argument that Ukraine falls within Russia’s sphere of interest. Since 2014, after Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, AP said Putin has framed the conflict as a response to Western encroachment. AP also said Putin has argued that NATO’s eastward expansion is unacceptable and cited Ukraine’s bid to join the alliance as a key reason behind the full-scale invasion that began Feb. 24, 2022.
AP quoted Putin from that period saying, “We have made it clear and unambiguous that further eastward expansion of NATO is unacceptable,” and later adding: “Are we the ones placing missiles near the U.S. borders? No, it’s the U.S. that has brought its missiles to our doorstep.”
The article then looked at whether past signals from Russia suggested a possible tradeoff. It cited testimony by Fiona Hill, who oversaw Russia and Europe on Trump’s National Security Council during his first term. AP said Hill testified in 2019 that Russians signaled a willingness to make an arrangement in which Russia would refrain from meddling in Latin America in exchange for the U.S. offering Moscow free rein in Europe.
In an interview with AP, Hill said Russia did not make a formal offer, but that then-ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov “hinted … many times” that Moscow could cede its influence in Venezuela to the U.S. in exchange for a sphere of influence in Europe. AP reported Hill also said Trump’s administration was not interested in what she described as a “hint-hint, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, how-about-doing-a-deal” offer, and that in April 2019 Hill was sent to Moscow with a message that “nobody’s interested. … Ukraine and Venezuela are not related to each other.”
AP said Hill told it she did not know if circumstances had changed and whether there was now any deal between the U.S. and Russia to swap spheres of influence in Venezuela and Ukraine. She also said officials involved in “restraining” Trump in his first term were not around for his second, and that she believed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio would likely be the only member of the Trump administration who would resist such a proposal.
AP quoted Hill asking: “Who knows what Witkoff and others have been chatting about recently?” It also reported that Hill said it would not be “implausible” that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff gave Moscow a “courtesy heads-up” before AP reported Russia had begun evacuating families of diplomats from Venezuela.
The account included a view from Sam Greene, a Russia expert at King’s College London. AP said Greene observed that Moscow may have backed down on Venezuela expecting the U.S. to give Russia a free hand on Ukraine, and Greene wrote on X that his “worry” was the move could be part of a tacit agreement in which Washington, Moscow and Beijing agree not to deter interventions in their putative spheres of influence.
AP said Russia has also sought ties in the region through military visits and weapons deals, and through investments in Venezuela’s oil industry. It said Russia offered Caracas generous loans for air defense missiles, fighter jets and other weapons, and described that in 2018 Russia dispatched its nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela as a projection of force. The article also said military experts have described major logistical obstacles for Russia to establish a permanent foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
In AP’s account, the U.S. seizure of Maduro and his wife has been seen worldwide as a return to the “might-makes-right” doctrine—language used to support the Kremlin’s claim that its action in Ukraine protects its vital interests in the same way the U.S. did in Venezuela. AP said Medvedev argued that after its Venezuela action, the U.S. has “nothing to formally reproach our country for,” and that Hill said the U.S. decapitation of a government using “fiction” makes it harder for countries to condemn Russia’s moves in Ukraine.
AP noted that an indictment accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. It also quoted Fyodor Lukyanov, a Kremlin-connected foreign policy expert, saying that in terms of precedent, the situation is “something better,” including Trump’s conviction that Venezuelan authorities must be approved by Washington.
The account said Russian hawks argued the U.S. action in Venezuela created urgency for Moscow to speed up its offensive in Ukraine. It cited a commentary by hard-line nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin that said: “Ukraine under our full control is our pass to the Great Powers club.”
AP European Security Correspondent Emma Burrows in London contributed.