Russian air defence systems in Venezuela were not connected to radars during US operation – NYT

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/01/12/8015770/

42 Comments

  1. Could be multiple factors here. Incompetent operators, maintenance reasons, could have been a false sense of security by separating them. Could have been an inside job as well. Or this article could be a complete malarkey psy op campaign.

  2. “Hi, is this IT? Listen, this air defense thing is not working, like *at all*. Shit’s getting bombed all over place.”

    “Did you check to make sure it’s plugged in and turned on?”

    “Of course I did! Do you think I’m some kind of idio– oh, hang on. Shit. That was it. Thanks!”

  3. First Iran now Venezuella. I guess we will never see Russian air defense systems in action.

  4. They absolutely had co conspirators on the ground working on the inside to undermine Venezuela.

    Something like this doesn’t happen without some rather severe betrayals.

    Now let’s see how Trump fares.

  5. Loose_Skill6641 on

    if they were not on then how did HARM missiles blow so many up?

    please explain that mr reporter

  6. India seems to be the only country that has seemingly used Russian equipment with success in recent times. Part of me wants to believe this is operator error but I am sure India is going around and looking at this with great caution.

  7. MarzipanTop4944 on

    Sounds like Russian propaganda to save face and try to spin the fact that their systems are dog-shit.

  8. Sure. That’s it. That’s why they failed. Wouldn’t want to lose any sales numbers or anything. They were ineffective in the end. That is what matters.

  9. Somewhere in Venezuela is a military officer who decided this missile system would be a lot less expensive if it was in a warehouse. I get that. But this military officer also never thought to pull it out and hook it up when the orange plague said he wanted to bomb his country.

    And now he has to live with that the rest of his life.

  10. CircumspectCapybara on

    It wouldn’t have made a difference if the missile batteries were connected to search and fire control radars and they got their “action.”

    The US is the king of SEAD+DEAD. All known radar emplacements would’ve been mapped out long before the operation and marked for destruction by cruise missiles, while during the operation, F-16s and F-35s would fly “Wild Weasel” missions to draw out any active enemy radars to destroy with anti-radiation missiles.

    Anything not destroyed would’ve be subject to jamming and other EW, including directing high power microwaves at enemy radars and electronics to “cook” them. US cyber command also conducted cyber attack to knock out electricity and communications, which had the effect of confusing and paralyzing a coordinated response. The radar operators who weren’t killed by HARMs would’ve been literally in the dark and confused about what was going on around them, not able to talk to or receive orders from outside.

  11. Wasn’t there a source that claimed many of them were disabled via bribery of the operators/commanders and that some were just afraid of radiation missiles ?

    I’m curious cause not even man pads were used.

  12. Serious_Bee_2013 on

    Huh, it’s almost like there was coordination there.

    Guess we will never know if Trump and Putin are in league with each other. It’s a mystery.

  13. equality-_-7-2521 on

    “Well we just leave then unplugged because when theyre plugged in they use a license and we were told to keep costs down.”

  14. ThePeacefulGamer on

    For those that don’t know the Russian Military Doctrine, they’re not permitted to shoot at military targets. They absolutely must wait to fire until all targets have been confirmed to be civilians.

  15. Ain’t that sumthin… OL’ Putin either knew what was about to happen, and he was helping Trump, or OL’ Putin’s equipment just sucks.

  16. Almost like they want us mired in Central America and out of Africa and leaving nato. Hmmm. Maybe they have someone on the inside….

  17. What about those “highly advanced” Chinese ones that Venezuela had about 10 of…

    The ones China said could detect American stealth aircraft like the F35

  18. LennylovesRabbits on

    Wouldn’t have mattered if they were…..Iran had them and they didn’t seem to accomplish much.

  19. My fear is that someone realized the Pentagon has contingency plans for almost any scenario. With that much naval forces in the region they could go for Cuba or Panama next. Hell this nutcase might try to roll up half of Latin America.

  20. Russia and Trump are working together. Russian diplomats also left Venezuela about two weeks before the attack. Not so with any other countries.

    Russia is fine with Trump taking Venezuela. It makes their attempted grab at Ukraine not look so bad. Russia is far too weak now to try to help Venezuela anyway. They are trying to leverage the situation to their advantage.

    Regardless of whatever you see in the media, Donald is working for Putin in any way he can and Putin knows this. All Putin has to do is call Donald and compliment him and whatever awareness that might have been developing in Donald’s mind about Putin using him and making him a fool is gone.