Russia has become a crucial ally of Venezuela’s dictatorship

IT RAISED EYEBROWS in the West. Amid talk of war in Ukraine, Kremlin officials this month dangled the possibility that, if NATO did not stop protecting countries close to Russia, Russia might deploy forces to Venezuela and Cuba. Jake Sullivan, the United States’ national security adviser, dismissed such talk as “bluster”. A large-scale deployment is indeed unlikely. Nonetheless, Russia’s role in the region is troubling. For the past 15 years or so it has propped up crooked dictatorships in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Vladimir Putin relishes a chance to needle the United States and look mighty on Russian television.