(Zero Hedge)—There are reports that during the Trump-ordered military raid on Venezuela to oust and capture President Nicolás Maduro, at least one US helicopter was hit by surface fire or possibly small missile, but the chopper managed to keep flying – with the pilot wounded – and the damaged aircraft made it back from the mission safely.
But this raised the question: what happened to Venezuela’s Russian-supplied anti-air defenses, including S-300 and Buk-M2 surface-to-air missile systems purchased in 2009?
While at this point it is well understood that the US military and CIA had help from inside the Venezuelan government – making it essentially a US-backed coup topped off with a special forces nab and grab against Maduro and his wife, there’s still the question of whether the entire Venezuelan armed forces were ordered to stand down, or else that their defense systems simply didn’t work or were inactive.
The New York Times says it was actually more the latter scenario – Russian-built air defense systems stationed in Venezuela were mostly inoperable and did not react to the major initial US strikes which paved the way for the ground operation in Caracas.
When American military aircraft entered Venezuelan airspace on Jan. 3, the missile systems were not even linked to radar, according to US officials privy to the mission to The New York Times.
The publication further explained the systems were not integrated with one another and may have actually been unusable for several years. Satellite imagery and photographs further suggest that critical elements of the air defense systems were being kept in storage rather than deployed.
Interestingly the Ukraine war has played a role, after early in the conflict US defense officials said they would support and supply the Zelensky government in order to ‘weaken’ Russia by bogging it down in a proxy war.
US officials explained to the Times that Venezuela (and presumably other Russian defense allies) has faced ongoing difficulties maintaining its Russian-made air defenses because of limited access to Russian technicians and spare parts – all of which have had to be diverted to support Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine.
Much of the initial US strikes appeared to focus on areas where Buk missile systems had been positioned or stored, and locations close to the capital.
“The Venezuelan armed forces were practically unprepared for the U.S. attack,” Yaser Trujillo, a military analyst in Venezuela, told The New York Times.
“Their troops were not dispersed, the detection radar was not activated, deployed or operational. It was a chain of errors that allowed the United States to operate with ease, facing a very low threat from the Venezuelan air defense system,” Trujillo added.
And a separate source concludes:
Venezuela’s much-touted antiaircraft systems were essentially not connected when U.S. forces entered the skies over Venezuela’s capital, and they may not have been working for years, former officials and analysts said.
“After years of corruption, poor logistics and sanctions, all those things would have certainly degraded the readiness of Venezuela’s air defense systems,” said Richard de la Torre, a former C.I.A. station chief in Venezuela who now runs Tower Strategy, a Washington-based lobbying firm.
The below OSINT account predicted this outcome back in mid-November:
For some context to those who haven’t been following for a while.
This is Venezuelas S-300 system and its storage at Captain Manuel Rios airbase in Guarico.
The missiles for the unit are stored just 100m away from the vehicles in a hangar.#Venezuela https://t.co/ka06CDPnVt pic.twitter.com/PqlCOZurqS— CNW (@ConflictsW) November 15, 2025
The report throws open another interesting possibility, with two former US officials stating their view that Moscow may have permitted the systems it sold to Venezuela to fall into disrepair in order to avoid escalating tensions with Washington.
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Not a big surprise. Russia, China, NK, Venezuela, and other Communist entities routinely lie about their capabilities to attempt to cower the USA. Good luck with that one Comrades.
hate to break it to you Sunshine but those in the West do the exact same thing
True. Except unlike the rotting UK and EU defenses, America had the benefit of Trump 1.0 that initiated 4 years of advanced military development that was even able to continue building on a lower scale under 4 years of Biden. Had Trump not significantly upgraded America’s defense technologies…with the significant contributions of Israel sharing their advanced patented technologies…we would have been just as outdated as Venezuela.
No we don’t, we actually keep our Best stuff under cover…….Remember…..If you can think it, we are already doing it
Yes we do, regular training exercises. You dont get the memos about those.
Stupid comment and so typical of someone out of touch with facts.
The “utter failure’ is because Russia palmed off old S-300 systems right out of the late 1970’s to Venezuela. This stuff is old, old, old and easily defeated FYI. Some of the older units still use vacuum tubes BTW. This stuff is easily jammed and sabotaged. No wonder why they went down.
Now go up against the latest versions of the S-400 systems–and it’s a different story altogether—unless you come in from the ground and attack them using sabotage techniques. Also try going up against Russia’s latest S-500 system which outclasses everything that NATO and the USA has currently fielded.
Yeah–it was a cake walk in Venezuela for Delta Force and their high-tech gadgets and nothing to get cocky about.
Nope. They had modernized versions from around 20 years ago. Still ineffective when they’re sitting in storage.
Everyone know how inept communist are and easily defeated because it is a immature backward system. The ones from Russia operate on Vodka and Elmo’s glue hold most of their military equipment together.
The ones from China come with a warranty of only 6 months with most of the makers out of business by then.
If we don’t SIN we RULE THE WORLD!
Is that why the ‘Patriot’ systems being used in Ukraine are doing so well at stopping nothing? Is that why the F-16s have all been shot down? Is that why the US and Israeli systems couldn’t stop Iran last June?
It’s also why Russia is humiliated by a ragtag army and China in Venezuela.
Just like Operation Ajax by CIA and MI6 in Iran in 1953 it was primarily bribed military and opposition figures that were bought off in that coup. As rightly stated the great and powerful US military are big on power and destruction and yet from Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan each time the US crumbles as the world does not care about the body count or how many planes shot down but remembers these country as freedom fighters with a history of losing and proxy fighters.
Their systems in some cases still use vacuum tubes which are prone to failure.
“Communist”? You are still living in the Cold War. You are proof that dinosaurs still walk the earth.
The US is great at fighting banana republics, but in this case there wasn’t even a fight, the US simply paid off everyone so that they didn’t even bother to do anything. Generalisimo Maduro either was handed over by his comrades or a deal was made so that he will have a phony trial and will then go into a luxurious retirement with a new name and identity as did Epstein.
Don’t be so quick to denigrate “vacuum tubes” When I worked on
the F16’es fourty years ago at Carswell AFB / General Dynamics, an
air force pilot told me back then that the “MIG’S have vacuum
tube radars that can fry a chicken at 100 yards, ours can’t
do that”
Also, vacuum tubes are NOT vulnerable to EMP (all you
have is a filament, cathode anode and grid connections
in beteen like in a pentode, within the tube, all made of metal.
Bipolar and especially CMOS type circuits fry when they
see an EMP surge, the doped semiconductor P/N/P
or N/P/N or in the case of mosfets source & drain are
very delicate.
Just my thoughts on the matter, I was a former military
contractor / electronic Tech with a secret clearance
and over twenty years experience.
Who is the peace President going to go after next? I guess Trump is waiting Bi-Bi to tell him what to do.
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“We fired two missiles”: S-300 air defense system crew commander talks about the destruction of an F-16
A Russian Armed Forces S-300 air defense missile system crew destroyed an American F-16 fighter jet in the Air Defense Zone. According to the crew commander, the operation to destroy the aircraft had been planned for a long time.
We’d been planning this operation for a long time. We were hunting it down, waiting. Our enemy praises these planes highly because they’re indestructible. It wasn’t the first shot—we used two missiles. We cut it down with the first, and finished it off with the second.
– told the officer.
As a reminder, military analysts estimate that the Ukrainian Armed Forces currently have no more than ten American F-16 fighter jets remaining, which were previously transferred to Kyiv by European allies. Some of these aircraft were destroyed by “friendly fire” from American Patriot air defense systems.
Several combat vehicles were destroyed with the help of Russian air defense systems.
Kyiv acknowledges that American fighters are not used in close proximity to the front lines due to the high activity of Russian fighters and the effectiveness of the air defense system. F-16s are primarily used by the enemy to repel attacks by Russian Geran-2 UAVs.
It should be emphasized that the latest modification of the S-300V4 air defense missile system is currently being actively used in the zone of the Russian Federation’s special military operation in Ukraine. Its longest-range anti-aircraft missile, the 9M82MDE, has a range of 380–400 kilometers when intercepting enemy aircraft and can shoot down not only aerodynamic but also ballistic targets.