Moscow is seizing an opportunity to stick a finger in Washington’s eye, experts say.
A Russian air force Ilyushin Il-62M jet that arrived with troops and equipment in Venezuela over the weekend is seen at Simón Bolívar International Airport outside Caracas on March 28.
The arrival of vital diluents is only one part of an expanding Russian footprint in Venezuela. Moscow is dispatching military personnel and equipment and is acting to offset U.S. sanctions by shipping Venezuelan crude to India for processing. The Kremlin is poised to increase wheat sales and dispatch more medical aid. This month, Venezuela also announced the opening in Moscow of a regional headquarters for PDVSA, its state-run oil giant.
President Trump said Friday that he is likely to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping about the crisis in Venezuela. Earlier in the day, national security adviser John Bolton was more pointed, issuing a statement that condemned the “introduction of Russian military personnel and equipment into Venezuela” as a “provocative” act and a “direct threat to international peace and security in the region.
Russia’s backing of Maduro in the face of the U.S. effort to depose him is increasingly being compared to the Kremlin’s intervention in Syria on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad. In 2015, Russian involvement turned the tide in Syria’s civil war, preserving Assad’s power and elevating Moscow into a seeming kingmaker in the Middle East.
“It’s an ideological chess game. Russia does not need Venezuelan oil,” said Russ Dallen, a Florida-based managing partner at the brokerage Caracas Capital Markets. “Venezuela is far from their supply lines. It was more an opportunity to stick their finger on Uncle Sam’s eye in the U.S.’s backyard.” “This aerial bridge that we are building with China represents an important investment in our people,” Maduro’s industries minister, Tareck El Aissami, told reporters in Caracas.
“There will be political, moral support,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, a Russian foreign policy analyst who has advised the Kremlin. “But Russia can’t send an armed contingent over there. It’s just not realistic.”
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