‘The Wise Are Running for Their Lives’: Venezuela Simmers With Violence as Putin Sends in Russian Troops

The arrival of the Russians means that Maduro is far from resigning to the opposition wave, but rather preparing for a showdown that will have many actors and many victims. The Russian soldiers may be few, at least for now, but they are bringing something more valuable than men—the skill-sets needed to fight a drawn-out war in the jungles of Venezuela. Because that is what will happen if war hits this country, despite any White House fantasies about a quick and clean operation that puts an end to the last socialist stronghold. A war would not be fought army to army, but rather army to army to paramilitary groups, Cuban operatives, FARC guerrillas and Russian mercenaries. Among the main actors in all of this are the colectivos, the paramilitary groups that once led the opposition during the Fourth Republic and were Chavez’s allies during the birth of the Fifth. Now they're an army in their own right that heeds no regular rules of engagement, as my own run-ins with them clearly showed. More…