The Kremlin made public this Thursday the telephone conversation held between Vladimir Putin y Nicolas Maduro. In the dialogue, his first acknowledged contact since last March, the Russian president “expressed solidarity with the Venezuelan people” and reaffirmed his support for the Chavista leader, who faces “increasing external pressure,” according to the Kremlin, which avoided mentioning the United States.
Because this “growing external pressure” is related to Washington’s military deployment in Caribbean waters under the pretext of combating drug trafficking in the region. The operation, which places Maduro at the top of a criminal network known as the Cartel of the Suns, has materialized in more than twenty attacks against alleged drug boats. Attacks that have killed at least 87 people since September.
The latest blow by the Donald Trump Administration against Caracas took place this Wednesday, with the seizure off the Venezuelan coast of “a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” according to Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, who, however, did not reveal the name of the intercepted vessel, the flag under which it was sailing or the exact point at which the seizure occurred.
The tenant of the White House celebrated the seizure of “a large, very large oil tanker; in fact, the largest ever seized” by the US military. Maduro denounced, instead, “the illegal and brutal interventionism of the United States Government in Venezuela and Latin America.”
The problems for Chavismo did not end there. In the early hours of Thursday, the opposition leader Maria Corina Machadowho had remained in hiding since August of last year, reappeared in public at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, a city that was waiting to present her with the Nobel Peace Prize.
The Kremlin statement also states that Putin and Maduro exchanged “opinions on the future development of Russian-Venezuelan friendly relations this Thursday, within the framework of the strategic partnership and cooperation treaty that came into force in November 2025.” It also confirms, in aseptic diplomatic language, the willingness of the parties to “constantly implement joint projects in the commercial-economic, energy, financial, cultural-humanitarian and other fields.”