Why Putin stays silent after US seizure of Venezuela’s Maduro
Venezuela’s Maduro, As images spread rapidly across Russian social media, one meme in particular has struck a nerve. It shows Vladimir Putin beside leaders once described by the Kremlin as Moscow’s closest allies, each later overthrown or forced into exile.
Among them are Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, killed in 2011, Syria’s Bashar al Assad, who fled to Moscow in 2024, and Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych, who escaped to Russia in 2014. Alongside them appears Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, recently seized in a US special forces operation and now facing trial in New York on drug trafficking charges.
What has drawn particular attention is not only the dramatic capture of Maduro but the Kremlin’s response, or lack of one.
Before the operation, US forces reportedly struck Buk 2MA air defence systems and radar installations supplied by Russia to Venezuela under what both countries once called a strategic alliance. Despite this, Moscow’s reaction has been muted. Russia’s foreign ministry condemned the operation as an unacceptable act of armed aggression, yet Putin himself has remained publicly silent.
Russia’s defence cooperation agreement with Caracas did not include automatic military support in the event of an invasion, giving the Kremlin political room to avoid escalation.
Prestige lost, strategy preserved
Analysts say the silence reflects a calculated choice.
“Putin’s prestige has taken a hit,” said Alisher Ilkhamov, head of the Central Asia Due Diligence think tank in London. “Maduro was Russia’s most loyal ally in Latin America. But from the Kremlin’s perspective, something bigger is at stake.”
According to Ilkhamov, the bigger picture is a shift in global power dynamics driven by Donald Trump.
“What Trump is doing is establishing a new world order where force matters more than international law,” he said. “For Putin, that matters more than the fate of one ally.”
Observers point out similarities with Russia’s inaction when Assad fled Syria in late 2024 as opposition forces took control. In both cases, Moscow avoided military confrontation with Washington.
One theory is that Maduro’s fate was quietly accepted during high level talks. Nikolay Mitrokhin, a Russia specialist at Bremen University, suggested understandings may have been reached during the Trump Putin summit in Anchorage last August.
“There may have been a discussion about limiting spheres of influence,” he said, with potential trade offs involving Ukraine, Arctic energy development and US ambitions in Greenland.
Trump’s repeated interest in Greenland, Mitrokhin argued, fits into a broader strategy of controlling the northern hemisphere’s strategic and energy resources.
Energy calculations behind the silence
Russia’s long term oil future may also explain the Kremlin’s restraint. Western Siberia’s Bazhenovskaya Svita, the world’s largest shale oil formation, remains largely untapped due to technical challenges.
US companies pioneered shale extraction, while Russian firms lack comparable expertise. Analysts say future cooperation could serve US interests by preventing China from gaining access to those resources.
“The United States needs control over Bazhenovskaya Svita to block China’s energy independence,” said Kyiv based analyst Aleksey Kushch.
From that perspective, the loss of Maduro is manageable. Russian media figures have instead used the episode to attack Washington’s imperial ambitions, reinforcing domestic narratives rather than seeking confrontation.
No shortcut to Trump
Others warn that Putin’s silence will not bring him closer to Trump.
On Monday, Trump publicly dismissed Putin’s claim that Ukraine had attempted to assassinate him in December.
“By ignoring Maduro’s capture, Putin will not gain Trump’s trust,” said Galiya Ibragimova of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
She suggested the episode may instead deepen Putin’s paranoia about betrayal within allied circles. Reports that information from Maduro’s inner circle reached US intelligence could prompt tighter security around the Russian leader.
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Ibragimova added that the operation could even inspire Kremlin hardliners to consider similar tactics against Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though there is no evidence such plans exist.
A long relationship ends quietly
Russia’s ties with Venezuela stretch back more than two decades. Putin built close relations with Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, who spent billions on Russian weapons including tanks, jets and missiles. Moscow even established an AK 47 rifle factory in Venezuela.
Russian specialists also played a role in processing Venezuela’s heavy crude oil, although outdated technology failed to halt the country’s production collapse, contributing to economic crisis and mass emigration.
After taking power in 2013, Maduro met Putin repeatedly, each visit marked by ceremony and pledges of eternal friendship. As recently as October, Maduro reportedly asked Moscow for missile support, aircraft repairs and financial assistance, according to The Washington Post. It remains unclear whether Russia responded.
For now, pro Kremlin commentators portray Maduro’s fall as part of a wider Western plot destined to fail.
“The collective West will never stop trying to defeat Russia,” wrote analyst Kirill Strelnikov in RIA Novosti. “You can try, and you will fall painfully from great height.”
Putin’s silence, analysts suggest, is not indifference but calculation. In a shifting global order, Moscow appears willing to sacrifice an ally if it believes the strategic balance ultimately works in its favour.
