Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Maduro’s Fall Would Be a Defeat for Putin, Too

Russia risks losing billions invested in propping up the Venezuelan regime.

January 24, 2019 at 12:24 PM UTC

Corrected

January 24, 2019 at 2:09 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Nicolas Maduro, president of Venezuela.
Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

If Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime falls, Vladimir Putin will have to write off yet another costly geopolitical bet. Just don't expect Moscow to stop taking such gambles as it tries to counter U.S. influence across the globe.

Russia is Venezuela’s most important foreign sponsor after China. Data on these countries’ financing of Venezuela are scarce, but China’s investment has been estimated to be as much as $70 billion, most of it to be paid back in oil. Russia and its state-owned companies have lent and injected more than $17 billion over the last 20 years. President Putin promised the latest $6 billion, plus 600,000 tons of grain, in December.