ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a broad panorama of the evolution of Russian–Venezuelan bilateral relations, including historical review, identification of the main areas of cooperation, and examining the scenarios resulting from the 2019 political crisis. The authors scrutinize the reasons for the Kremlin to provide constant support to the regimes of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, the most important of which has to do with geopolitics and the logic of reciprocity. In particular, they demonstrate that Moscow’s rapprochement to Venezuela must be viewed in the context of Russia’s strive to recover its international influence and acquire tools that would allow Vladimir Putin’s government to stand on an equal footing with the other powers in the international arena. Hence, according to the authors and several other factors in play in the Venezuelan scenario, the continuing attachment of Russia to the events in Caracas has grown stronger despite the open US discontent and, to a certain extent, precisely because of the US discontent.
