Russian companies are being pushed out of Venezuela following the United States’ capture of President Nicolás Maduro last month, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said, suggesting the move was driven by pressure from Washington.
“Right now, in the wake of the events in Venezuela, our companies are being quite openly forced out of the country,” Lavrov said in an interview with the Kremlin-backed RT network published Thursday, without naming the companies involved.
He claimed the actions were being taken at the behest of the U.S. but did not offer further details.
Lavrov also noted that the U.S. had imposed sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft and was threatening tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy products despite talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
Earlier, state-owned Roszarubezhneft, which manages Russia’s assets in Venezuela, said it would continue to meet its obligations and intended to develop projects jointly with Venezuelan partners after Maduro’s seizure.
The company said all its Venezuelan assets were owned by Russia and had been acquired on market terms in full compliance with Venezuelan law.
Roszarubezhneft participates in joint ventures with Venezuela’s state oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA).
Russia and Venezuela signed a strategic partnership agreement in May 2025.
Five joint ventures with Russian participation were operating in Venezuela at the time, Venezuelan Ambassador to Russia Jesús Rafael Salazar Velázquez said.
According to data from analytics firm Kpler, Russia overtook the U.S. by the end of 2025 to become Venezuela’s largest supplier of naphtha for its petrochemical industry.
U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife in the early hours of Jan. 3 and transported them to the U.S., where they face numerous drug-trafficking charges.
President Donald Trump has since been pushing for U.S. oil firms to invest $100 billion to rebuild Venezuela’s energy industry.
Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez last week signed a law that opens the country’s energy sector to privatization, including by U.S. firms, as Washington eased some of its sanctions on Venezuelan oil.
Read this story in Russian at The Moscow Times' Russian service.
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