Among the groups most affected by President Maduro's change of address, besides his backers in Venezuela and the U.S., are the governments of Iran, Cuba, China and Russia with the latter being the biggest loser.
From The Hill, January 4:
Russia is offering stark criticism of the U.S. military attack on Venezuela, which resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
In response, Russia called for a full meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
“This morning, the United States carried out an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. This causes deep concern and condemnation,” Russia said in a statement from its Foreign Ministry.
“The pretexts cited to justify such actions are unfounded. Ideologized hostility has prevailed over practical pragmatism and over a willingness to build relations based on trust and predictability,” Russian officials wrote, nearly five years into the nation’s own war in Ukraine.
Russia, a key ally of the Maduro regime, said it was crucial to “prevent further escalation and to focus on finding a way out through dialogue.”
“We proceed from the understanding that all parties who may have claims against one another should seek solutions through dialogue-based approaches. We are ready to support them in this,” the ministry said.
“Latin America must remain a zone of peace, as it declared itself in 2014. Venezuela must be guaranteed the right to determine its own destiny without any destructive, especially military, interference from outside,” it wrote. “We reaffirm our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and our support for the course of its Bolivarian leadership aimed at defending the country’s national interests and sovereignty.”
Russia said its embassy in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital city, was operating normally and that it had no information about Russian citizens having been injured.
Attorney General Pam Bondi says Maduro has been charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machine guns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machine guns and Destructive Devices against the United States.”
“They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts,” Bondi added in a post on the social platform X.
Maduro had been in power in Venezuela since 2013. The Venezuelan communications ministry said in a statement that he had signed a declaration of emergency urging “all social and political forces” in the country to “activate mobilization plans and repudiate” the attack from the U.S....
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There is a possible connection between Serbia and Venezuela beyond both being best buddies with the Russians but I won't pull on that string yet, it may turn out to be an hallucination. So for the moment I'll just relay some of the recent stories out of the Balkans:
From Poland's TVP World television, December 29:
Serbia’s student protests escalate political crisis, renew calls for early elections
Serbia is once again witnessing a surge of civic mobilization, as student-led protests push the country’s long-running political crisis into a new phase.
Demonstrators have begun collecting signatures demanding early parliamentary elections, framing their movement not as a partisan effort but as a struggle over democratic values, accountability and the rule of law.
Speaking on TVP World’s World Talks, Nataša Vučković, director of the Center for Democracy Foundation and a former Serbian member of parliament, said the protests reflect a “very large discontent with the present government” that extends well beyond traditional opposition politics....
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From Saint Petersburg's Oreanda-News, January 2:
The Russian ambassador called the signs of a color revolution in Serbia
Signs of a color revolution and an externally supported attempt to change power in Serbia are obvious given the complex composition of the protest movement, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botan-Kharchenko said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
"There are internal issues, some of the participants who joined the protests, who are dissatisfied with certain aspects, the conditions of their existence, and so on. There are really people who are very empathetic, sympathetic," the Russian diplomat noted.
He recalled that the starting point of the protests was the tragedy in Novi Sad, the collapse of the canopy at the railway station on November 1, 2024.
"But a lot of this protest movement, its organization, launch and maintenance in an intensive state, and there were also moments when it was possible to speak about a very large scale, is connected with external support. Yes, this is one of the options, let's say so, to promote the color revolution in Serbia, which we also discussed, let me remind you, with the aim of changing the government, changing specific people in power, President (Alexander) Vucic," said the head of the Russian diplomatic mission.
Protests by students and the opposition began in 2024 in Serbia after the collapse of a canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad....
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Finally, I don't think NATO is going to bomb Serbia (and the Chinese embassy) again but you never know. From a January 2024 post:
...The 78 day NATO bombathon of Yugoslavia that started on March 24, 1999 was a pretty big deal, at least for the people under the rubble. I admit I was a bit distracted by the historic 1995 - 2000 run in the Nasdaq and didn't see pictures like this at the time:
