Lessons from Russia's Latin America engagement over Ukraine
Russia’s engagement with Latin America after its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and the Latin American response to the invasion, illustrates the growing strategic challenge to the U.S. from the survival and proliferation of populist authoritarian regimes in the Western Hemisphere. It also hints at opportunities for Russian President
Vladimir Putin to escalate pressure against the United States and its allies should he need to retaliate over Western sanctions in the long-term.
Russia’s recent outreach to Latin America as it prepared to invade Ukraine followed a similar pattern to that it
pursued in 2008, as it sought to create strategic space for its engineering of pro-Russian successionist movements in the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions of Georgia, and in 2013, as it similarly engineered and provided forces to the
successionist movement in the Donbass region of the Ukraine. Russian Deputy Prime Minister
Yuri Borisov’s visit to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, as well as Putin’s meetings with Argentine President Alberto Fernández and
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro was reminiscent of the improvised visit to the region by then-
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev during the 2008 crisis — all intended to demonstrate that Russia was not isolated after the inevitable international response.
In preparation for its current invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov linked his country’s actions in the European theater to its geostrategic thinking in Latin America. He recently alluded to the possibility of
deploying military forces to Venezuela and Cuba, and doubled down on the threat with the recent signing of a
Russia-Venezuela agreement for expanded security cooperation. This was reminiscent of when Russia sent nuclear-capable Tu-160 backfire bombers to the region in
2008,
2013 and
2018 during the previous crises, or its sending of
four warships to realize “naval exercises” in the region in 2008. What is clear is that Russia sees Latin America through the lens of strategic leverage with respect to its actions in its near abroad.
Russia’s behavior in the current crisis illustrates a repeated pattern of leveraging authoritarian populist regimes and other willing actors to
deliberately pose strategic threats against the U.S. in the Western Hemisphere, in order to create space for its aggression in Europe. It highlights that the unprecedented proliferation of anti-U.S. and other illiberal regimes
throughout the Western Hemisphere goes beyond the abuse of their own people, their criminality and their corrupt networks.
In military affairs, the veiled threat by Ryabkov to deploy troops to Venezuela or Cuba, and the previously mentioned military cooperation agreement signed during Borisov’s visit to Venezuela, were notable for their lack of specifics. A Russian deployment of significant military forces to the region when it is bogged down in Ukraine and is facing
crippling Western sanctions is also implausible.
Nonetheless, Russia has sold
over $11 billion in
military hardware to Venezuela, including
Su-30 fighters, Mi-17 and Mi-35 helicopters,
T-72 tanks and
BMP-3 and
BTR-80 armored vehicles, and
S-300 air defenses. These military systems, including material assistance to its military forces moving toward the Venezuela-Colombia border, present a threat that
Colombian Defense Minister Diego Molano rightfully called out. Similarly, the military equipment Russia has provided to authoritarian Nicaragua includes
T-72 tanks,
Yak-130 fighter trainers,
An-26 transport aircraft,
TIGR armored vehicles, ZU-23 antiaircraft systems,
Mizrah patrol boats and Molina missile boats, among other systems.
As the U.S. worked with its European allies to rally international opinion against clear, unprovoked and ongoing Russian aggression,
Venezuela,
Cuba and
Nicaragua condemned the United States instead, while declaring their support for the work of
Russian backed separatists who had carved regions out of Ukraine.
Bolivia,
Argentina,
Brazil and even
Panama refused to explicitly condemn
or sanction Russia’s actions.
Indeed, on the eve of the invasion, Argentina’s president publicly offered Russia’s use of Argentina as a “
point of entry” for Russia to expand its presence in the region, while Brazil’s president, arguably frustrated with the Biden administration’s cold shoulder from Washington over his environmental policies, had a friendly meeting with Putin, including a
dialogue between Brazil’s Defense and Foreign Ministers and their Russian counterparts. When Russia did invade, Bolsonaro publicly
overruled his own Vice President, Hamilton Mourão, and
refused to condemn Putin’s actions. Ironically, Brazil and Argentina, who rely heavily on imports of nitrate-based fertilizers from Russia, could be among those most prejudiced in the region by Putin’s actions and associated sanctions against him.