After Maduro: Why Venezuela’s oil reset threatens Russia’s war economy

After Maduro: Why Venezuela’s oil reset threatens Russia’s war economy

Olha Konsevych

When the United States carried out a military operation in Venezuela on January 3, 2026, and announced the capture and removal of President Nicolás Maduro, the political shock was immediate.

For the oil market, this means something more consequential. From this point forward, Washington has acquired the practical ability to regulate part of Venezuela’s oil flows – at least by shaping the channels through which Venezuelan crude can be moved, insured, financed, and sold.

For Russia, that shift is a major risk. In an economy already strained by sanctions, war expenditure, and discounted export sales, the danger is not a dramatic collapse but a slow squeeze.

How Russia sought to profit from Venezuela’s instability

For years, Venezuela functioned as a node in a wider authoritarian ecosystem, sustained by external patrons. Russia provided military backing and political cover. China extended loans and infrastructure financing. Iran assisted with sanctions evasion, particularly in energy logistics. Cuba embedded security and intelligence personnel deep inside the Venezuelan state apparatus.

The study “Russia in Latin America: Why support Venezuela in a crisis?” shows that Russia combined political backing, loans, commodity trading, military assistance, and cultural diplomacy to sustain the relationship, while also securing mutual support in multilateral forums such as OPEC and the United Nations. This multi-instrument approach allowed Russia to maintain influence even as Venezuela’s domestic situation deteriorated.

Venezuela functioned less as a viable economic partner and more as a strategic foothold: a resource-rich state offering symbolic value, access to energy and mineral assets, and geopolitical presence in the Caribbean basin. Venezuela’s political instability and declining ability to service its debts limited its economic utility, but did not negate its strategic relevance for Moscow.

Following the operation against Maduro, U.S. officials began pressing Venezuela’s transitional authorities to expel suspected intelligence operatives from China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba – a demand first reported by Axios.

Oil in the center of Trump’s plan

Washington began intercepting and blocking sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela, signaling a readiness to police “shadow oil” routes not only financially, but physically. That enforcement posture now extends to shaping how Venezuelan crude re-enters regulated markets.

Within hours of Maduro’s capture, Trump argued that U.S. oil majors stood ready to commit billions of dollars to revive Venezuela’s crippled crude sector – an investment he suggested could ease global growth pressures by expanding supply and pushing energy prices lower. This poses a serious risk for Russia, whose hydrocarbons are already being sold close to breakeven levels. Strategically, Washington is seeking to ensure that Venezuelan crude is traded through regulated, “white” supply channels, while shadow routes become significantly more expensive – a shift that would force Russian oil to sell at even steeper discounts and generate lower net revenue per barrel.

Over the past year, Trump had repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to engage the Kremlin on potential pathways toward a ceasefire or negotiated settlement between Moscow and Kyiv. These overtures – often controversial domestically – were widely interpreted as gestures aimed at exploring a deal palatable to Russia’s leadership.

Yet the U.S. intervention in Venezuela appears to have altered Moscow’s internal calculus. Kremlin-aligned media outlets and Russia-controlled foreign platforms have launched a coordinated campaign targeting the personal credibility of the 47th president of the United States, portraying Trump as reckless, illegitimate, or acting outside international norms.

Infrastructure and talks as a challenge  

Decades of underinvestment, mismanagement, sanctions and corruption have left Venezuela’s oil infrastructure in a chronically degraded state. According to recent reporting by Financial Times, facilities in the Orinoco Belt show significant physical deterioration – with corroded tanks, sludge buildup and broken storage infrastructure.

Luisa Palacios, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy, said France 24 that oil multinationals would likely be seeking assurances from both the US and Venezuelan governments that their investments would be protected

“And the other part of the deal is you need to make sure that there are assurances on the ground. You actually need minimum guarantees of rule of law and improvements in governance,” Luisa Palacios added.

It should be noted that Ali Moshiri, a former senior Chevron executive now attempting to raise roughly $2 billion to invest in Venezuelan oil assets. The company continues to pump oil in the country, having been granted a sanctions exemption by the Biden administration after the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine changed global energy markets.

Experts believe that there is an opportunity to bring back some of the oil production that has been lost.

Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) – which under a decree adopted during Hugo Chávez’s presidency retains at least a 51% ownership stake and operational control over all exploration fields – said it was “moving forward with negotiations for the sale of crude volumes to the US”.

According to PDVSA, the discussions with Washington are “based on a strictly commercial transaction, guided by criteria of legality, transparency and mutual benefit”.

Olha Konsevych: Journalist, researcher | Vital Voices | GMF | WZB Berlin | Max Planck Society alumna || Mahabahu Correspondent

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