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The lightning U.S. operation<\/a> to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro can be seen as both a benefit and a burden for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces botched an attempt to capture Ukraine\u2019s capital and topple its leader at the start of Moscow’s invasion<\/a> nearly four years ago.<\/p>\n The ouster of Maduro highlights another Kremlin failure to support an ally, following the downfall of Syria\u2019s former President Bashar Assad<\/a> in 2024 and last year\u2019s U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.<\/a> With the U.S. determined to establish control over Venezuela, Russia stands to lose a strategic foothold in the Western Hemisphere, along with billions of dollars invested in its oil industry.<\/p>\n But President Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela also are causing unease in Western nations<\/a> and giving the Kremlin fresh talking points to defend its war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n In addition, Trump\u2019s interest in wresting control of Greenland<\/a> from NATO ally Denmark also threatens to destabilize the alliance at the moment when the U.S.-led efforts to broker peace in Ukraine enter a pivotal stage,<\/a> distracting its members from their efforts to support Kyiv and provide it with security guarantees.<\/p>\n Putin himself hasn\u2019t commented on the U.S. actions in Venezuela, which his diplomats have denounced as a blatant act of aggression. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia\u2019s former president who serves as his deputy on the presidential Security Council, similarly rebuked Washington for trampling international law \u2014 but also complimented Trump on defending U.S. interests.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though Trump\u2019s action is completely unlawful, he cannot be denied a certain consistency — he and his team are very aggressively upholding their country\u2019s national interests,\u201d Medvedev said.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the U.S. said it seized two sanctioned oil tankers<\/a> linked to Venezuela, including one flagged to Russia in the North Atlantic.<\/p>\n Since 2014’s illegal annexation of Ukraine\u2019s Crimean Peninsula that followed the ouster of a pro-Kremlin president in Kyiv, Putin has sought to justify his action by describing his neighbor as part of Russia\u2019s sphere of influence where Western encroachment can\u2019t be allowed.<\/p>\n Putin has argued that just as the U.S. would bristle at any foreign military presence in the Western Hemisphere, Russia sees NATO\u2019s expansion to its borders as a major security threat. He cited Ukraine\u2019s bid to join the military alliance as a key reason behind his full-scale invasion of the country.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have made it clear and unambiguous that further eastward expansion of NATO is unacceptable,\u201d Putin said shortly before sending troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. \u201cAre we the ones placing missiles near the U.S. borders? No, it\u2019s the U.S. that has brought its missiles to our doorstep.\u201d<\/p>\n Long before the invasion, Russia tested the ground on a possible deal under which it would refrain from meddling in Latin America in exchange for the U.S. offering Moscow free rein in Europe.<\/p>\n Fiona Hill, who oversaw Russia and Europe on Trump’s National Security Council during his first term, testified before Congress in 2019 that the Russians were signaling their willingness to make such an arrangement involving Venezuela and Ukraine.<\/p>\n Russia never made a formal offer, Hill told The Associated Press in an interview, but Moscow\u2019s then-ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, \u201chinted … many times\u201d to her that Russia could cede its influence in Venezuela to the U.S. in exchange for a sphere of influence in Europe.<\/p>\n She said Trump’s administration wasn\u2019t interested in the Russian overtures that she described as a \u201chint-hint, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, how-about-doing-a-deal\u201d offer. In April 2019, Hill was sent to Moscow to convey the message that \u201cnobody\u2019s interested. … Ukraine and Venezuela are not related to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill said she did not know if the winds have now changed and whether there was any deal between the U.S. and Russia to swap spheres of influence in Venezuela and Ukraine, but she noted that many officials, including herself, who were involved in \u201crestraining\u201d Trump in his first term aren’t around for his second.<\/p>\n She argued that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio would likely be the only member of the Trump administration who would now resist such a proposal, but added that others, including Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, could have a different view.<\/p>\n \u201cWho knows what Witkoff and others have been chatting about recently?\u201d Hill asked.<\/p>\n Before Maduro was captured, AP reported Russia had started evacuating families of diplomats<\/a> from Venezuela. When asked about the move, Hill said it would not be \u201cimplausible\u201d that Witkoff gave Moscow a \u201ccourtesy heads-up.\u201d<\/p>\n Sam Greene, a Russia expert at King\u2019s College London, observed that Moscow may have backed down on Venezuela in the expectation of the U.S. giving it a free hand on Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cMy worry is that it may be part of a tacit agreement, by which Washington, Moscow and Beijing agree not to deter one another against interventions in their putative spheres of influence,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n Before the invasion of Ukraine, senior Russian officials had issued vague warnings that Moscow could deploy troops or military assets to Cuba and Venezuela \u2014 statements that the U.S. dismissed as bluster. Some drew parallels to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis \u2014 when the Soviet Union deployed missiles to Cuba and the U.S. imposed a naval blockade of the island.<\/p>\n Russian-Cuban ties withered after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, plunging Cuba into a grueling depression. Soon after his first election in 2000, Putin ordered the closure of a Soviet-built military surveillance facility in Cuba as he sought to improve ties with Washington. As tensions with the U.S. and its allies mounted, however, Moscow again intensified trade and other contacts with Cuba and sent warships to visit the island.<\/p>\n Russia also has invested heavily in Venezuela’s oil industry, as did China, and offered Caracas generous loans to purchase top-of-the-line air defense missiles, fighter jets and other weapons. On several occasions, most recently in 2018, it dispatched its nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers to Venezuela in a projection of force.<\/p>\n Military experts have said, however, that any attempt by Russia to establish a permanent military foothold in the Western Hemisphere would face overwhelming logistical challenges.<\/p>\n The U.S. seizure of Maduro and his wife was seen worldwide as the return of the \u201cmight- makes-right\u201d doctrine, backing Moscow\u2019s argument that its action in Ukraine protects its vital interests the way the U.S. did in Venezuela.<\/p>\n After its action in Venezuela, the U.S. has \u201cnothing to formally reproach our country for,\u201d Medvedev noted.<\/p>\n Hill noted that Maduro\u2019s capture makes it harder for countries to condemn Russia\u2019s action in Ukraine because \u201cwe\u2019ve just had a situation where the U.S. has taken over \u2014 or at least decapitated the government of another country \u2014 using fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n An indictment<\/a> accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine<\/a> into the U.S.<\/p>\n Fyodor Lukyanov, a Kremlin-connected, Moscow-based foreign policy expert, observed that \u201cif we consider what\u2019s happening from the perspective of setting a precedent, then we couldn\u2019t ask for anything better, and this includes Trump\u2019s conviction that the authorities in Venezuela must be approved by Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n Russian hawks, meanwhile, argue the U.S. action in Venezuela has created a new sense of urgency for Moscow to dramatically speed up its offensive in Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cUkraine under our full control is our pass to the Great Powers club,\u201d Alexander Dugin, a hard-line nationalist ideologue, wrote in a commentary.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n AP European Security Correspondent Emma Burrows in London contributed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n