Russia's ambassador to Venezuela said the country's forces fired two shots against U.S. forces during the raid that captured authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro but failed due to lack of preparation.
"Besides having a machine gun in your hands you need to know how to shoot it," Serguei Melik-Bagdasarov said in an interview. He went on to say that troops were not prepared enough to operate Russian anti-aircraft weapons.
Different reports, however, have given diverging accounts from what happened to Venezuelan troops during the operation. The New York Times detailed earlier this month that air defense systems bought from Russia were not connected to the radar when the raid took place because the regime was not able to maintain the S-300 and Buk-M2 systems.
The outlet claimed that the military's "incompetence" played a large role in the success of the operation, as its antiaircraft systems were practically disconnected during the operation.
Moreover, it's possible they have not worked for years, according to analysts and former officials cited by the NYT. Videos and satellite imagery reviewed by the outlet determined that some components were still in storage at the time of the attack.
However, President Donald Trump said in an interview that the U.S. used a secret weapon he called the "Discombobulator" to disable defensive systems.
"They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us," he told The New York Post.
Elsewhere in the interview, Melik-Bagdasarov said Moscow knows the names of those who "betrayed" Maduro. He added that "local law enforcement agents didn't do all they could" during the operation.
He went on to say that actions that ended in the operations began before the raid, noting that "if what happened here long before this happened could be called treason, naturally it was."
"We know the names of those traitors who fled Venezuela and systematically worked for U.S. intelligence," the ambassador added.
It is unclear who Melik-Bagdasarov was referring to, but The Guardian detailed in a recent report that Delcy Rodriguez, who replaced Maduro, pledged along with her brother Jorge to work with the U.S. if he was removed.
The assurance from the Rodriguez siblings came before Maduro was captured. They added that his removal would be a welcome outcome. "She said, 'I'll work with whatever is the aftermath,'" a source detailed.
© 2025 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
