On the Scope of the Ties Between Putin’s Russia and Chavista Venezuela: The Possibility of a “Secondary Front”?

As Donald Trump appears to waver over Ukraine—where he faces both Greater Russian imperialism and a conquering Eurasianism resistant to any “deal”—tensions are rising around Chavista Venezuela. At first glance, such a situation fits the vision often attributed to the U.S. president: a geopolitics centered on the Western Hemisphere. However, one should not overlook the significance of Russian-Venezuelan ties, their strategic dimension, and the disruptive power they grant the Kremlin.

The regime established by Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s Leninist-Justicialist caudillo from 1999 to 2013, has been in power for a quarter of a century, a system of domination perpetuated by President Nicolás Maduro¹. He represses opponents and is ruining one of the world’s most resource-rich countries (oil, gold, bauxite, nickel, iron, rare earths, etc.). Eight million Venezuelans, or nearly three-tenths of the population, have fled abroad, causing a migration crisis in neighboring countries, with repercussions as far away as the United States. To strengthen their power and increase their wealth, Maduro and his cronies have set up a system to circumvent international sanctions, and turned the country into a platform for drug trafficking². A pillar of Chavism, the army has its own cartel (Los Soles), while the regime’s security services collaborate with other criminal organizations (Tren de Aragua). Their henchmen hunt down political opponents who have taken refuge abroad. In the immediate neighborhood, Maduro is contesting the border with Guyana, which is rich in hydrocarbons, and threatening to take action. On a subcontinental scale, Hugo Chávez was behind the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA), whose positions in favor of a “multipolar world” overlap with the Kremlin’s geopolitical discourse and representations³.

The Americans’ carrots and sticks

For a long time, U.S. diplomacy relied on a combination of positive and negative sanctions (the stick and the carrot), international condemnation of Chávez’s practices (election rigging and repression of opponents), and the good offices of Lula da Silva—an unrepentant Trotskyist and president of Brazil—to achieve a certain liberalization of the regime. Fundamentally, many leaders in the United States, convinced of the attractions of market democracy, believed that the seductive and persuasive power of their model would ultimately prevail. But in Venezuela, as elsewhere, the much-hyped theory of soft power has reached its limits. During Donald Trump’s first term, U.S. policy, under the impetus of National Security Advisor John Bolton, briefly considered provoking regime change, without really preparing for it or persevering in that direction. Subsequently, the situation in Ukraine and its energy consequences led Joe Biden, the new president of the United States, to ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil⁴.

At the beginning of his second presidential term, Donald Trump wanted to distinguish himself from his predecessor by authorizing the American energy group Chevron to import Venezuelan oil. He then realized that Venezuela was the hub of Latin American migration flows that his administration wanted to stem, and that the Chavista regime played a significant role in drug trafficking and the criminal economy of the cartels, which controlled and supplied the drug market in the United States. That is why the oil embargo was reinstated and the cartels, Venezuelan and others, are now considered terrorist organizations, subject to military action. In 2025, ten thousand US soldiers are deployed to Puerto Rico, along with a war fleet (seven ships and a nuclear attack submarine) and F-35 aircraft; the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford is en route to the Caribbean; the Chavista regime is under heavy U.S. military pressure, several ships suspected of involvement in drug trafficking have been bombed (eight strikes to date) and the specter of direct military intervention looms; the CIA is authorized to carry out operations on Venezuelan territory.

It is not yet clear how far Donald Trump is prepared to take the United States in this matter. Is he planning to conduct an international police operation against drug cartels and human trafficking, or is he considering the use of armed force to oust Maduro from power and bring down the Chavista regime? Within the Trump administration, as among the Republican electorate, interventionist “hawks” and isolationist “MAGA” supporters are at odds over the issue. In either case, this gunboat diplomacy resonates with the classic themes of the Monroe Doctrine, the “American Mediterranean” (the Caribbean-Gulf of Mexico region), and the Western Hemisphere, as was the case at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries⁵. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor, seems to have a broader view of the issues at stake, the Trump administration has not set out a clear strategy regarding Venezuela and the United States’ “backyard” (Central America/American Mediterranean). In all respects, the reductive approach that seems to dominate thinking in Washington differs from that of the 1980s, when the challenge was to contain communism, Soviet influence, and Cuba’s activities in the region. However, the reality of Russian-Venezuelan ties and the role of Castro’s services in Maduro’s government cannot be ignored.

We need to bear in mind the close historical alliance between the USSR and the communist regime in Cuba, led by brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro. The “missile crisis” (October 1962) was a high point in the East-West confrontation, which came within a hair’s breadth of armed conflict, at the risk of nuclear war⁶. Admittedly, the ties forged during the Cold War were damaged before the breakup of the USSR, as Moscow no longer had the means to support the island, an advanced base for communism 150 kilometers off the coast of Florida, but with a ruined economy. The deterioration of relations between Russia and the West, particularly after the attack on Ukraine (2014), and the resulting international isolation led to a rapprochement with yesterday’s ally. A few weeks after the annexation of Crimea by force, the Kremlin leader traveled to Havana to meet with Raúl Castro. As a sign of goodwill, nine-tenths of Cuba’s debt incurred during the Soviet era was canceled.

From Havana to Caracas

Since then, significant progress has been made in developing economic, trade, and financial relations, with major joint projects in the fields of energy, transport (particularly rail), industry (including the medical and pharmaceutical sector), agriculture, science, and technology, as well as the promotion of Cuban exports to the Russian market. Chaired by the vice presidents of both governments, the Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Commercial, Scientific, and Technical Cooperation between the Republic of Cuba and the Russian Federation meets regularly. On Cuban territory, major Russian companies such as Russian Railways, Rosneft (oil), and the automobile companies Autovaz, Kamaz, Gaz, and Uaz are carrying out projects. In 2017, Rosneft delivered oil to Cuba, partly taking over from Venezuela, which was in the midst of a serious crisis⁷ (Venezuela normally provided 70% of Cuba’s oil needs).

We can speak of a Moscow-Havana-Caracas geopolitical axis, with Cuba providing security services to the Chavista regime, in close cooperation with Russia, which also mobilizes the Wagner Group⁸. In truth, during these years of the rise of Russia’s revisionist geopolitical program, Venezuela has become a “new Cuba” in the eyes of Moscow.

In the 2000s, Putin’s main local ally was Chávez. Military cooperation took the form of Russian arms sales (Kalashnikovs, fighter jets, and tanks), financed by oil revenues. Joint maneuvers, involving Russian aircraft and naval fleets, were organized in the Caribbean. Cooperation was mainly in the energy sector, with both countries attempting to form an oil consortium. In joint statements, Moscow and Caracas affirmed their desire to constitute a “solid counterweight to American influence.” On the international stage, Venezuela is one of the few countries to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which were taken from Georgia in August 2008. Igor Sechin, a close friend of Putin and head of Rosneft, is said to have played an important role in this recognition⁹, in exchange for loans, subsidies, and equity stakes in the energy company PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela SA).

Soon, in order to deal with the serious financial problems caused by the Chávez regime, the latter turned even more to Russia, as well as to China, which granted large loans; in return, these two countries became owners of Venezuelan refineries. Chávez’s successor, Maduro, maintains a privileged relationship with Moscow. Estimated at a total of $17 billion at the end of the 2010s, Russian support (investments in the oil and mining industries, wheat deliveries) goes hand in hand with closer military cooperation. Russian warplanes sometimes land at Venezuelan airfields and take part in training exercises: on December 10, 2018, two TU-160 bombers, accompanied by an AN-24 and an Il-62, made strategic headlines during their stay (they left after five days of exercises). This is clear support for a president facing opposition from parliament and a large part of the population (another part is voting with their feet and fleeing to neighboring countries). What’s more, Moscow is said to have sent a group of 400 mercenaries to the incumbent president to provide him with close protection¹⁰ (Reuters, January 25, 2019). A golden age in Russian-Venezuelan relations?

Conclusion

It could be argued that Putin’s Russia, having been defeated in Ukraine, has other fish to fry, that it no longer has the means to pursue a costly policy in a peripheral theater, let alone the possibility of promoting a new international order in Latin America, far removed from Eurasia, whose fate is the focus of the Kremlin’s attention and appetites. This is true, but there is no need to mobilize enormous resources to acquire the power to cause harm, to weaken the United States by promoting the opening of a “secondary front” (a key concept in Soviet strategic thinking), with repercussions in Ukraine and on American alliances in Europe. When it comes to oblique strategy and asymmetric warfare, we can be sure that the Russians know how to do a lot with very little: aggression, persistence, and obstinacy make up for their lack of resources; they will not hesitate to secretly encourage a policy of making things worse in order to “pin down” the United States. In the background stands the People’s Republic of China, the main partner of many Latin American countries and sponsor of the Global South.

Donald Trump should therefore carefully weigh his strategic options, both in Venezuela and throughout the region, and precisely define his political objectives. Potentially torn between Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific, the United States would be exposing itself greatly by claiming to go beyond an international police operation aimed at keeping the Chavista regime in check and weakening it. Above all, it is important to develop an overall geopolitical vision that takes into account the interconnections between the various global theaters and the repercussions from one part of the globe to another. With regard to “Russia-Eurasia,” the People’s Republic of China, Islamic Iran, and other murderous systems, such as the bunker regimes in Pyongyang and Caracas, the fate of Western democracies calls for a “grand strategy” that combines unity of purpose, convergence of views, and shared responsibility. Through trial and error and mutual adjustments, this geopolitical framework could take shape. If the United States is willing.

Addendum

The concept of the “Western Hemisphere” refers to the entire inter-American region, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, as well as the Caribbean. The use of this concept goes beyond the mere designation of a geographical area: it is the vehicle for geopolitical representations centered on the United States and the role it is supposed to play in this part of the world. It is, in fact, a projection of the “American system,” its principles and values, as conceived and designed by the Founding Fathers of the United States, on a continental scale. This broader conception of the “American system” can be found as early as the 1820s in the thinking of John Quincy Adams (the sixth president of the United States) and Henry Clay (Secretary of State in the Adams administration). For Henry Clay, such a system would not establish an empire but would establish U.S. hegemony in the Americas and, beyond countering the Holy Alliance there, rival England economically, commercially, and monetarily. Institutionally, the Organization of American States (OAS), founded on Pan-Americanism, is an expression of this (but the United States faces a great deal of resistance there). However, the economic translation of this Pan-Americanism, i.e., the project for a free trade area of the Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, promoted by Washington in the 1990s and 2000s, never came to fruition. China is now the major economic and trading partner of Latin American countries, and it may become their main financial partner in the future (see China’s plans for “de-dollarization” and the digital yuan).

Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier

Associate professor of history and geography and researcher at the French Institute of Geopolitics (University of Paris VIII). Author of several books, he works within the Thomas More Institute on geopolitical and defense issues in Europe. His research areas cover the Baltic-Black Sea region, post-Soviet Eurasia, and the Mediterranean.

1. This system of domination is organized around the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela). Founded in 2007, it brings together several far-left forces that support the Chavista version of the “Bolivarian Revolution.”
2. This is an oil embargo implemented following the fraudulent presidential election of July 2024, which returned Maduro as head of state with an official 51.2% of the vote.
3. Founded in 2004 in Havana on the initiative of Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) brings together a number of Latin American and Caribbean countries opposed to the Free Trade Area of the Americas promoted by the United States. ALBA has eleven members: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Ecuador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada. Honduras left ALBA in 2010 and Ecuador announced its decision to do the same in 2017. Unlike Suriname, El Salvador took a different direction.
4. It was necessary to limit the effects of the decline in Russian hydrocarbon exports following Western sanctions and to contain the rise in prices.
5. In this regard, it is worth recalling the Trump administration’s views on the Panama Canal, which was built by the United States and placed under its sovereignty until 1999. On March 4, 2025, the Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Group announced that it had sold most of its port activities to a consortium led by the American asset manager BlackRock (the Swiss company MSC, the world’s largest shipowner, is a stakeholder in this offer). The €20.5 billion sale included the management of 43 ports in 23 countries, including two at either end of the Panama Canal, and came just weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump called for an end to “Chinese control” of the canal, through which a significant portion of global trade passes. As things stand, Beijing is blocking the sale and intends to bring the shipping company Cosco Shipping to the negotiating table. Cosco Shipping is reportedly demanding a 20% to 30% stake and veto rights, which would give Beijing a say in the management and future of the Panama Canal.
6. The resolution of this crisis marked the beginning of “Détente,” more accurately described in Moscow as “peaceful coexistence.” The Soviet missiles were withdrawn, but the alliance between Moscow and Havana remained, with the United States pledging not to invade the island. Supported by Soviet aid, oil supplies, and sugar purchases, the Castro brothers’ regime survived.
7. In part, this was also Venezuelan oil delivered to Russia to erase part of the country’s debt.
8. Agents of the Cuban G2 (the Intelligence Directorate) are present and active in Maduro’s power apparatus. During the last presidential election in 2024, their presence was reinforced by members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), the Ministry of the Interior, and other organizations linked to the Cuban party-state. Cuban companies and advisors were hired by Maduro to develop the electronic identity card and digital systems for participation and vote counting in Venezuelan elections.
9. Founded in 1976 during the nationalization of the Venezuelan oil industry, PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela SA) is a state-owned oil company. Under Chavista control, it is the regime’s “cash machine.”
10. In addition to providing close protection for Maduro, these men form Venezuelan elite units, paramilitaries (the pro-Maduro Colectivos), and local militias. Wagner, now partly replaced by other companies of this type (see Africa Corps), also ensures the security of Russian interests in Venezuela (oil, gold and thorium mines in the Orinoco Mining Arc) . Finally, Russian forces were involved in the repression of unrest in 2019 and again in 2024, as well as in the hunt for dissidents.