The main part of Venezuela's air defense (PVO) is made up of Russian systems, which are used by the regime Nicolas Maduro praised several months before the US military operation. However, this did not help him.
General Dan Kane, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff SAD, announced that more than 150 combat and reconnaissance aircraft participated in the operation in Venezuela, among them F-35 fighter jets, B-1 strategic bombers and combat helicopters, he writes DW.
Thanks to the rapid disabling of the anti-aircraft defenses of the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, losses were avoided, Kane claimed.
"Obviously the Russian anti-aircraft systems didn't work very well," US Defense Secretary Pete Hegsett said in a speech to US soldiers.
What systems should protect Venezuela?
Technically speaking, the Russian systems could have worked much better, according to Austrian military historian Markus Reisner.
"It was a perfect combination of multiple factors from the elimination of enemy air defenses and a cyber attack on the air defense command and control system," Reisner explains to DW.
He also adds that a major role was played by the collection of intelligence data conducted by the American secret services CIA and DIA.
According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2008 and 2014 alone, Russia supplied Venezuela with three Buk-M2 and S-300VM Antey-2500 systems, as well as eleven modernized S-125 Pechora-2M systems.
For this, in 2015, the then Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, was awarded the Order of National Security in Venezuela.
SIPRI data, however, is not complete due to non-transparent reporting of arms exports. Experts estimate that Venezuela had even more Russian air defense systems of different ranges.
In the past 20 years, Venezuela has acquired at least 17 large missile air defense systems and numerous portable systems from Russia, building one of the densest multi-layered air defenses in Latin America.
In October 2024, Russia reportedly delivered additional Pancir and Buk-M2 air defense systems, as well as Igla-S man-portable anti-aircraft systems, which Maduro boasted about.
"Every military in the world knows the destructive power of the Igla-S missile, and Venezuela has at least 5.000 such missiles," he said in October 2025.
"Venezuelan's air defense, which is based on Russian systems and is combined with a Chinese radar system to detect air attacks, was the strongest in Latin America, which is not a surprise because most countries on that continent are not afraid of air attacks," military expert Yuri Fyodorov told DW.
What happened during the attack?
The US military operation began with a cyber attack that knocked out much of Caracas' electricity supply and allowed 150 US planes, drones and helicopters to approach the capital undetected.
In order to secure the corridor, according to the Washington Post, six anti-aircraft installations that were supposed to protect Caracas were attacked. Among those affected are, among others, a port, an air and military base, an airport and a communication center located on a mountain. According to published footage, at least two Buk missile launchers were destroyed.
In addition, Western military experts found that a significant portion of the air defenses were inoperable due to poor maintenance and a lack of spare parts – but also because Russia had failed to meet repair and modernization commitments.
As a consequence, only a small part of the system was functional at the time of the American attack.
The Washington Post reported in October that Maduro, faced with a US military presence in the Caribbean, had asked Russia and China for missiles, drones, radars and aircraft. However, in recent years, Moscow has shown less and less interest in Venezuela, and apparently no significant support has arrived from Russia even in the current crisis.
The American operation, which lasted a total of two hours, eventually led to the capture of Maduro - with no losses to the American army. Only one helicopter was damaged, but managed to return to base.
Why did air defense fail?
Yuri Fyodorov attributes the failure of Venezuela's air defenses to the use of the latest generation of US F-35 and F-22 fighter-bombers.
"Those fifth-generation aircraft are very difficult to locate with radar. Theoretically, they could disable air defense and destroy it from the air, as happened in Iran during the 12-day war. Fifth-generation aircraft can relatively easily overcome air defense, including the Russian S-400 systems," says this military expert.
Anti-aircraft systems on the ground, especially Russian ones, are not powerful enough against modern bombers, military expert Daniel Bahmat told the Telegraph magazine.
According to him, anti-aircraft systems cannot compete with the combination of real-time reconnaissance, electronic warfare and precision weapons. Experts also point to the hilly terrain of Caracas as a problem. Russian anti-aircraft systems are designed for flat terrain, according to the Telegraph.
In addition to the technical shortcomings of the Venezuelan air defense, the fact that the army was unable to react to the attack also played a decisive role.
According to the US Defense Blog, the US attacked key command and communication centers, which led to the disorganization of the units. Several hours after the attack, no coordinated actions could be observed.
However, Yuri Fyodorov believes that the main reason for the failure of the Venezuelan air defense is human error. "It is not so much about the technical capabilities of one side or the other, but rather that the Venezuelan armed forces simply overslept and did not expect an attack," says Fyodorov.
Markus Reisner agrees with that. Although export versions of Russian anti-aircraft systems have limited capabilities, the deciding factor is not the weapon systems themselves, but their operators.
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