In his hour of desperation, Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly pleaded with Russia to help defend his regime from military intervention.
The now-deposed dictator of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, once hoped for similar support as he spent his final days in Damascus last December watching Syrian rebels sweep through the country. So did Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as Israel wiped out Iran’s top military brass ahead of U.S. strikes on key nuclear sites in June.
The Kremlin’s help never came for Assad nor Khamenei—who were left only with platitudes from Moscow’s foreign ministry–and it won’t be coming for Maduro in the event of American intervention.
A glimmer of false hope for Maduro came in the form of a Russian Il-76 cargo plane that landed in Caracas last Tuesday, amid quickly escalating U.S. pressure in the Caribbean. But even if this plane were filled to its 50-ton capacity with arms, it would amount to only a paltry fraction of the support from Moscow that Maduro has requested, despite the Russian Foreign Ministry’s public signaling that Moscow supports “the leadership of Venezuela in defending its national sovereignty.”
The case of the Assad regime should put to rest any expectation of concerted Russian support for a Venezuela facing overthrow. For a decade, Russia invested vast resources in an attempt to protect the Assad regime from falling to the Syrian opposition. Russia joined the Assad regime’s war against civilians in 2015, including a notorious hospital bombing campaign.
For their efforts, Moscow reaped considerable rewards. Russia’s expansion of its military footprint on the Syrian coast benefited both their operations in Ukraine and across Africa. Russia entrenched itself deeply, using Syria as a nexus for aspirations of far-reaching global influence.
Yet, Russia demonstrated little-to-no effort, beyond cursory airstrikes, to stop the rapid fall of the Assad regime in December. In fact, Moscow eagerly began attempting to negotiate with Syria’s new leaders whose forces had been on the receiving end of Russian bombs just weeks prior.
Russia simply no longer has the capacity or commitment to comprehensively uphold its relationships with its allies and proxies as it pours its focus into its full-scale war against Ukraine. In a time of a serious regime security crisis, Maduro will certainly not benefit from Russian air support traveling across the Atlantic, nor will he enjoy the same Russian troop deployments to Venezuela that occurred during the country’s last political crisis in 2019.
Moscow’s reticence to defend Tehran as Iran’s top military brass and key nuclear facilities were attacked in June only further highlighted Russia’s growing unreliability.
Iran had vigorously supported Moscow’s war in Ukraine, including shipments of Shahed drones that have become a backbone of Russia’s tactical strategy. The two countries also signed a strategic partnership treaty just months before the Israeli campaign.
Rather than stepping up to defend its most key ally in the Middle East, Russia’s response to an Iran in crisis was verbal condemnations akin to “thoughts and prayers.”
Last week, Russia ratified a similar strategic partnership treaty with Venezuela—an agreement sure to be worth just as little as its Iranian predecessor.
While the Kremlin remains absorbed by its invasion of Ukraine, and mobilizes its monetary and human capital to do so, its alliances are especially vulnerable to crumbling from neglect. If there was ever a time for the U.S. to put pressure on Moscow’s most far-flung partners—it would be now.
Venezuela’s economic cooperation with Russia, including a recently renewed surge in shipments of petroleum products crucial for Venezuelan oil production, continues even as Moscow becomes increasingly economically isolated. Maduro’s departure would mean the loss of a significant node of Russian influence in America’s backyard, leaving Moscow with Nicaragua and Cuba as its remaining key partners in the hemisphere.
As the U.S. turns the temperature up, Russia will be tempted to continue to posture in Venezuela’s defense.
However, if American intervention shifts from strikes in the Caribbean to the Venezuelan homefront, Maduro is likely to find himself waiting for Russian help that will never arrive.
At best, he could hope for a one-way flight bound for Moscow and an apartment next door to Bashar al-Assad.
Kareem Rifai is a graduate student at the Georgetown Security Studies program.
