United States President Donald Trump’s escalating threats toward Venezuela may appear dismissible as random presidential impulses, but they connect too closely to major confrontations to be viewed as a regional matter with limited global impact. Venezuela is becoming a bargaining chip in superpower games, alongside Ukraine.
Examine opening chapters in Antony Beevor’s World War II history to see how seemingly disparate conflagrations on different continents—the Nanjing massacre in China, Mussolini’s Abyssinian invasion and Spanish Civil War—played roles in building up to modern history’s most horrible carnage.
This is not to suggest the world necessarily slides into a third world war—although the threat always exists. So long as main characters in Russia-US relations, Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, remain more prone to mutually beneficial transactions than confrontation, a global bargain feels more likely than global war.
Venezuela’s Strategic Significance
Not a major power at all, Venezuela still matters globally—not only as a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but also as a political ally of China, Iran and Russia—countries the US-led West sees as archrivals. Of these three, Russia finds itself in the most delicate position regarding Venezuela. The US-driven escalation poses risks for the Kremlin, but there are also potential gains to be made.
The main factor is the unexpected thaw which happened in relations between US and Russia during Trump’s second presidential term. Since Putin’s ascent to power in 2000, the Kremlin has seen the US first as an unreliable partner, then as a full-fledged adversary with ambition to divide and rule in the ex-Soviet neighborhood.
But it all suddenly went back to a partnership of sorts when Trump returned to the White House at beginning of 2025. The US all but terminated its financial aid to Ukraine and adopted near-neutrality posture, though it still supplies crucial intelligence to Ukrainian army. In the latest iteration of its National Security Strategy, the US even dropped Russia from the list of “direct threats”.
Ukraine Peace Talks Progress on Russian Terms
As peace talks over Ukraine, initiated by Trump, slowly proceed, Putin has good reasons to believe the war is ending on his terms. Despite performative defiance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recently suggested he could agree to his army’s withdrawal from the north of the Donbas region—the most punishing of Russian demands in negotiations. It was yet another concession he suggested he might be open to in 2025, with the Kremlin not moving one inch from its negotiating position.
Meanwhile, European Union countries have failed to agree on the reparations loan that could guarantee stable funding to Ukraine in coming years. Although a cheaper alternative was devised in last-minute negotiations, the story demonstrated that European commitment to Ukraine is reaching its limits.
Given all the above, it is hardly the best time for the Kremlin to spoil a difficult but all-in-all good working relationship with Trump’s administration over something as distant and unrelated to Russia’s core interests as Venezuela.
Russian Diplomatic Posturing
Yes, Russia would make all the expected noises. Its United Nations envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, has claimed that by threatening Venezuela, the US is engaging in “aggressive neocolonialism.” He said it is “cynically imposing its order as it tries to retain global domination and the right to exploit other country’s riches with impunity.”
This is in reference to the US openly demanding that Venezuela open up again to its oil companies, which controlled much of the country’s oil industry prior to its gradual nationalization in the 1970s.
It is not as though Russia itself has no interest in Venezuela’s riches—Russian oil companies have joint ventures with Venezuelan oil monopoly, PDVSA, although their history is checkered, not least due to US sanctions. But Russia would not go out of its way to save a friendly Latin American government. Russian support for Venezuela will always be directly proportional to US pressure exerted on Russia in connection with Ukraine.
The potential fall of Nicolas Maduro’s government is not going to be the end of the world for the Kremlin. Russia has a history of adapting to new political regimes that replaced its traditional allies in countries affected by US obsession with regime change. Iraq and Syria both serve as good examples.
Geopolitical Calculations
There is also the aspect of cynical political calculation. The geopolitical gains from the US launching military attack on Venezuela potentially exceed the losses. That is because it would put Russia and US on equal moral footing with regard to war in Ukraine. If the US can dictate its will by means of military aggression in what Americans call “their backyard,” then why can Russia not do same in its own?
The US aggression in Venezuela would justify Russian aggression in Ukraine in the eyes of many, especially in the Global South. Handily for the Kremlin, it would also sow further divisions between US and Europe as well as feed polarization within US itself.
If, in addition to Venezuela, the Trump administration presses forward with its irrational desire to occupy Greenland, the situation would be ideal for the Kremlin. It may even open avenues for post-Ukraine rapprochement with EU-led part of Europe, currently its main global nemesis.
Conservative Foreign Policy Vision
Generally, Russians see themselves as keepers of the old order, ultimate foreign policy conservatives. They see US-led West as a revisionist force responsible for undoing post-World War II order and see war in Ukraine as a way of countering that revision.
But, as their thinking goes, if there is no return to old order, for which West is to blame, let us negotiate a new one: an order in which US does as it pleases in its Western hemisphere, and Russia retains influence over ex-Soviet neighborhood.
An ideal scenario for Russia would be for US to get bogged down in Venezuela for years. But if Maduro falls fast, it is OK, too. When dust settles, the outcome might look like a transaction—a US-friendly Venezuela in exchange for war in Ukraine ending on Russian terms.
Original analysis by Leonid Ragozin from Al Jazeera. Republished with additional research and verification by ThinkTanksMonitor.
