US operation in Caracas sparks debate over contrast with Russia's offensive

The contrast between the operation in Caracas and Russia's offensive in Ukraine reopens the debate over what makes a military power

A US military operation in Caracas ended with the capture of Nicolás Maduro within a matter of hours, according to messages in the thread. That same week, Russia's war machine is still unable to decapitate the Kyiv regime after years of offensive. The comparison is inevitable and the contrast brutal: one side came in by air and took the target; the other has been unable to close out its Special Military Operation since February 2022. The debate over what makes a military power great is back on the table.

What peine in Caracas and why it is compared with Ukraine

The operation in Caracas was carried out with a helicopter-borne assault within a matter of hours, according to messages in the thread. According to one calculation circulating online, news denouncing Maduro's disappearance arrived barely two and a half hours after the first explosions. The detail is not trivial: it points to an operation with prior intelligence, clear objectives and a very short execution window. Nothing like a prolonged ground deployment.

On the other side of the scale, Russia's offensive against Ukraine has gone on for years without capturing Volodymyr Zelensky or taking Kyiv. Some recall that in the early stages of the invasion Moscow sent its best tanks toward the capital and ended up pulling them back. The official explanation spoke of a gesture of goodwill within the framework of the Istanbul negotiations. The alternative reading, far more widespread in critical analyses, holds that they were withdrawn because they were being hammered by drones and artillery.

The fifth column argument

One of the most repeated theses to explain Russia's failure in Kyiv points to the absence of a well-prepared fifth column. The operation was designed as something quick, almost administrative, not as a war. When that assumption collapsed, Moscow was forced to rework the plan on the fly. That difference in preparation — intelligence, local networks, the ability to decapitate power — is what separates an hours-long operation from a war of attrition.

The contrast with Caracas is what fuels the comparison. There, no front line had to be held: the task was to get in, grab the target and get out. In Ukraine, by contrast, the war devolved into a logic of territorial attrition, with slow advances and intermediate objectives such as Pokrovsk, Myrnohrad or Huliaipole. Gaining ground is not the same as decapitating a regime.

Why hasn't Russia eliminated Zelensky?

The most widespread answer is that it cannot. It is not a matter of willingness but of capability: if Moscow could have captured Zelensky, it would have. Air defenses, dispersed command structures and sustained Western support have shielded the Ukrainian president. Added to this is a strategic calculation: eliminating the leader does not guarantee an improved negotiating position, and could complicate it.

Some add another nuance. Russia would not necessarily benefit from decapitating the regime: any successor could be equal or worse for its interests. That ambiguity explains why the stated objectives in the various draft agreements — including those from Istanbul — never included Kyiv or the surrounding regions as an explicit territorial annexation.

The narrative of the power that doesn't want to

An ironic version of the official argument circulates: Russia could take Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and the entire coastline, but doesn't want to. It could decapitate the regime, but doesn't want to either. The problem with that reading is that it clashes with the facts: at the start of the operation, Pilingui was urging the military to stage a coup against the Ukrainian government. If that is not wanting to decapitate a regime, it comes pretty close.

The comparison with the US operation in Caracas sets the bar very high. A helicopter-borne assault resolved in hours versus years of attrition warfare. The difference between a power that executes and one that sustains the narrative that it could but doesn't want to is, precisely, the distance between the plan and the result.

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The question left open is not whether Russia is or is not a military power. It is what kind of power is one that has spent years unable to close out its special operation while another resolves its own in an afternoon. For now, the map provides the answer.