Dear Colleague: This week’s veiled threat by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov to deploy military forces to Venezuela and Cuba is likely an uncredible attempt to gain strategic leverage in the ongoing Ukraine crisis, not unlike Russian gestures with military forces with allied leftist populist regimes in Latin America and the Caribbean during the 2008 Georgia civil war, the 2013-2014 escalation of tensions over the Ukraine, Russia’s 2018 “talk” of using Venezuela’s tiny La Orchilla Island as a military airbase, etc, etc. Nonetheless, it does call attention to the continuing strategic risk posed to the U.S. and the region by the situation in Venezuela, and the various criminal actors, armed groups, and extra-hemispheric actors pursuing their objectives in the country.
Another great piece of research. Thanks for sharing! Dr. Huff