Why Venezuela Proves That Russia Is Still a World Power

In short, over the last several years, Russia has acquired in Venezuela, as it has in Syria, a need to preserve the current regime in order to safeguard its investments. This imperative has strengthened in the last several years, because the opposition has made clear that it views the increased Russian commercial presence in the country as illegitimate. The National Assembly warned last year that it did not consider the new contracts between PDVSA and Rosneft to be valid, and members have dramatically demonstrated their opposition by ripping up copies of the PDVSA-Rosneft deals. The message has been received loud and clear in Moscow: if Maduro goes, so will the Russian acquisitions. More…