- Maria Machado’s escape involved a complex operation by Grey Bull Rescue Foundation.
- Her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf during the ceremony.
- Machado spoke about the need for international action against the Venezuelan regime.
Hours after her daughter accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in the streets of Oslo, Norway, early Thursday, greeting a cheering crowd.
Machado, 58, missed the ceremony awarding her the Nobel Peace Prize, but arrived in Norway hours later, appearing on the balcony of the historic Grand Hotel in Oslo around 2:30 a.m., per The New York Times.
As she waved to journalists and supporters, people in the crowd started singing the Venezuelan national anthem. Machado’s appearance came shortly after she had escaped Venezuela in an operation that took multiple days.
Appearing in Oslo has put Machado back in the global spotlight, escalating the standoff between President Donald Trump and Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro.
Who is María Machado?
According to The New York Times, Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October because she led a successful electoral challenge to Maduro last year. The Venezuelan president disregarded the election results and cracked down on dissent after declaring himself the winner.
Machado’s movement was the most serious peaceful challenge made to Maduro’s government in years.
Though Maduro was declared the winner of the election by the electoral authority and the top court, international observers and the opposition say the opposition’s candidate won. The opposition also published ballot box-level tallies as evidence of victory, per Reuters.
When Machado didn’t make it to Wednesday’s ceremony, her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the prize on her behalf.
The daughter of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ana Corina Sosa, accepts the award on behalf of her mother, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony at Oslo City Hall, Norway, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. | Stian Lysberg Solum, NTB Scanpix via the Associated Press Machado’s dangerous escape after almost a year in hiding
After being briefly detained for joining supporters at a protest in Caracas, Machado had been in hiding since Jan. 9.
Her escape from Venezuela this week began on Tuesday and was led by the Grey Bull Rescue Foundation, an American private rescue team. The operation was led by Bryan Stern, a U.S. Special Forces veteran, and it took 15 to 16 hours to get Machado out of her country and safely on her way to Norway, per CBS News.
The vast majority of that time was spent in rough seas.
“No one’s blood pressure was low, throughout any phase of this operation, including mine,” Stern said. “It was dangerous. It was scary. The sea conditions were ideal for us, but certainly not water that you would want to be on … the higher the waves, the harder it is for radar to see. That’s how it works.”
The operation not only got Machado safely out of Venezuela, but also reunited her with her children for the first time in two years.
Stern said the goal of the operation wasn’t to get Machado to Norway in time for the ceremony, but rather, they focused on saving her life.
“From my perspective at least, her life was the most important aspect of this,” he said, according to CBS News. “I look at this operation as saving a freedom fighter’s life, as saving a mother’s life.”
“We talked about her seeing her children for the first time in two years and I almost cried,” Stern told CBS News. “She’s a tough-as-nails, hard-as-woodpecker-lips woman, person, but she’s still a mom, and she talked about how excited she was to see her children. It’s been two long years.”
He said being able to facilitate that reunion “truly was a blessing. We could not feel more privileged or honored to support this operation. She truly is a hero of mine. I’ve looked at her as an inspirational defender of freedom as long as I’ve known of her. So to be asked to support this, to conduct this operation, truly was a huge honor, a privilege for us.”
In a press conference on Thursday at Norway’s parliament, Machado said she plans to take her Nobel Prize back to Venezuela but did not specify when that would be.
“I came to receive the prize on behalf of the Venezuelan people and I will take it back to Venezuela at the correct moment,” she said, according to Reuters.
A woman watches the ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize for Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in Norway, during a live viewing on a screen in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. | Rodrigo Abd, Associated Press She acknowledged that she could face arrest if she returned to Venezuela under the current government. Venezuelan officials previously said that Machado would be seen as a fugitive if she left the country.
Machado said the Venezuelan government did not know where she had been hiding out and would have tried to prevent her from leaving the country. According to The New York Times, Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, claimed on Wednesday that the government had been aware of her movements, but did not provide evidence.
Machado’s supports the increasing U.S. aggression against Venezuela
On Thursday, Machado asked foreign governments to expand their support of Venezuela’s opposition to action and not just words, per The Associated Press.
“We, the Venezuelan people that have tried every single, you know, institutional mean, ask support from the democratic nations in the world to cut those resources that come from illegal activities and support repressive approaches,” she said. “And that’s why we are certainly asking the world to act. It’s not a matter of statements, as you say, it’s a matter of action.”
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said his country is ready to support a democratic Venezuela in “building new and sound institutions,” according to the AP.
Machado’s public appearance comes as the Trump administration has deployed the largest U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean since the Cuban missile crisis. The U.S. military has carried out fatal strikes on boats it claims were trafficking drugs and this week seized an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner continued to reject talks with the Venezuelan government, backing a force-based approach. Machado has embraced Trump’s military pressure and has not criticized the fatal strikes.
“I believe that President Trump’s actions have been decisive to reach the point where we are right now, in which the regime is weaker than ever,” Machado said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado smiles during a press conference at the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Norway, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. | Heiko Junge, NTB Scanpix via the Associated Press From outside Venezuela, Machado will have more opportunities to ask the U.S. and other allies for more support in her push for political change in her country.
During Thursday’s press conference, Machado was asked if she would support a U.S. invasion of Venezuela. She responded by saying her home country had already been invaded by criminal actors such as drug cartels and Russian and Iranian agents, per Reuters.
“This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas. And what sustained the regime is a very powerful and strongly funded repression system,” she said.
Machado continued: “Where do those funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking, and from human trafficking. We need to cut those flows.”
The opposition leader also said that Maduro’s rule would come to an end and she would return home to finish what she started.
“I’m going back to Venezuela regardless of when Maduro goes out,” she said, according to Reuters. “He’s going out, but the moment will be determined by when I’m finished doing the things that I came out to do.”
Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado outside the Grand Hotel in Oslo, Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. | Ole Berg-Rusten, NTB via the Associated Press