Kathrine Frich
The arrest of Venezuela’s long-time leader has sent shockwaves through authoritarian circles well beyond Latin America.
In Moscow, the moment is being watched with a mix of alarm and uneasy reflection.
A former Kremlin insider says the fallout is not just geopolitical but deeply personal for Russia’s president.
Fear and identification
According to the media outlet Dialog, political scientist Abbas Galyamov argues that Vladimir Putin is grappling with two conflicting emotions after Nicolás Maduro’s arrest.
On one level, Galyamov writes, Putin identifies with Maduro as a fellow authoritarian ruler.
That sense of kinship fuels both outrage and anxiety about what the episode might signal.
“Russia, of course, is not Venezuela, so there is hope that the Americans are not even planning anything like that, but, on the other hand, the devil knows them! And even if not me, then Khamenei or Kim Jong-un, that is also bad!” Galyamov wrote on his blog.
Envy and regret
At the same time, Galyamov suggests Putin is viewing events through another lens, that of a leader who still sees Russia as a would-be superpower.
In that role, he argues, the Kremlin leader is consumed by envy of US President Donald Trump and the decisiveness shown in Venezuela.
“I should have been in his place! That’s exactly what I should have done with Zelensky four years ago, instead of all this!” Putin supposedly “whispers sadly,” according to Galyamov.
The political scientist predicts a tense atmosphere within Russia’s security establishment, with senior figures facing angry questions about why others can act decisively while Moscow cannot.
Dangerous thoughts
Galyamov also points to a deeper, more destabilising consequence of Maduro’s arrest for authoritarian systems.
In both Russia and Iran, he writes, the episode may encourage elites close to entrenched leaders to consider whether it is safer to remove rulers who, over time, lose their grip on reality.
He argues that such leaders eventually push their systems toward collapse, and that both Putin and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei understand this danger perfectly well.
They are aware, Galyamov suggests, of the thoughts now circulating among some of their associates, and the uncertainty of how to live with that knowledge.
Sources: Dialog, Abbas Galyamov blog, LA.lv
