Guy Falconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – The capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro by the United States leaves Vladimir Putin without an ally and could bolster U.S. “oil influence”, but Moscow is eyeing the potential gains from President Donald Trump’s carving up of the world into spheres of influence.
Special forces captured Maduro just eight months after the Russian president struck a strategic partnership with his “dear friend” and Trump said the United States was taking temporary control of Venezuela, which has the world’s largest oil reserves.
Some Russian nationalists criticized the loss of an ally and contrasted the swift U.S. action with Russia’s failure to control Ukraine during nearly four years of war.
But on another level, what Russia calls Trump’s “piracy” and “regime change” in America’s “backyard” would be more tolerable to Moscow, especially if Washington is mired in Venezuela.
“Russia has lost an ally in Latin America,” said a senior Russian source, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
“But if this is an example of the Trump Monroe Doctrine, as it appears to be, then Russia also has its own sphere of influence.”
The sources were referring to the Trump administration’s desire to reassert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere and restore the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which declared the region a Washington sphere of influence.
Another Russian source said Moscow viewed the U.S. action as a clear attempt to control Venezuela’s oil wealth and observed that most Western powers had not publicly criticized the move.
The dangers of Trump’s “Wild West”
Since the end of the Cold War, Putin has sought to establish a Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Ukraine, a move that has been opposed by Washington.
Putin has yet to publicly comment on U.S. actions in Venezuela, although the Russian Foreign Ministry has urged Trump to release Maduro and called for dialogue. The department previously viewed Trump’s actions as modern-day piracy in the Caribbean.
Russian state media described the operation as a U.S. “kidnapping,” reporting Trump’s remarks about America’s “sick” neighbors and mentioning the U.S. capture of military leader Manuel Noriega in Panama on January 3, 1990.
“Trump has just ‘stole’ the president of another country, which shows that basically there is no international law, only the law of force, but Russia has known this for a long time,” former Kremlin adviser Sergei Markov told Reuters.
He said the modern-day Monroe Doctrine — which Trump suggested could be updated as the “Donro Doctrine” — could be interpreted differently.
“Is the United States really ready to recognize Russia’s dominance over the former Soviet Union, or is the United States simply too powerful to tolerate any major power getting close to it?”
Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Russian Federation Council or Senate Information Policy Committee, sees U.S. actions in Venezuela as a direct implementation of U.S. national security strategy and describes them as an attempt to restore U.S. hegemony and gain more influence over oil reserves.
But he said it risked a return to “the mad imperialism of the 19th century and, in effect, a revival of the concept of the Wild West – the idea that the United States had regained the right to do whatever it wanted in the Western Hemisphere.”
“Will victory turn into disaster?” he asked.
Russian nationalists compare Venezuela and Ukraine
For Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, it seems acceptable to have a U.S. president focused on and potentially trapped in the Western Hemisphere, given Russia’s focus on Ukraine and China’s focus on Taiwan.
But some Russian nationalists have criticized Bashar Assad for losing an ally so soon after Syria’s fall and compared the speed of the U.S. action to Russia’s much slower progress in Ukraine.
Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft, ended its operations in Venezuela in 2020 and sold assets related to its operations in the country to a company owned by the Russian government.
Imprisoned Russian nationalist Igor Girkin said the United States in Venezuela showed us how a great power should act when faced with a potential threat, and viewed the U.S. actions as part of an attempt to cut off the flow of oil to China.
“Our image has taken another hit – another country that looked to Russia for help and didn’t get it,” Girkin said.
“We are so deep in the bloody swamp of Ukraine that there is little we can do, especially since we can’t help Venezuela, which is in the other hemisphere next door to the United States.”
(Edited by Timothy Heritage)
