In the world of diplomacy, silence can sometimes scream louder than declarations of war. When the ground shook beneath Caracas at the start of 2026—amid a sweeping U.S. military intervention and the dramatic capture of Nicolás Maduro—the response from the Kremlin was nothing short of staggering in its emptiness. For a nation that once stood as the unyielding guardian of Venezuelan sovereignty and the bulwark against so-called