Trump claims successful strike on Venezuela and capture of Maduro
3 January 12:18
The United States “successfully conducted a large-scale strike against Venezuela,” US President Donald Trump said, reports "Komersant Ukrainian".
According to him, the leader of the republic, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife have been “captured and taken out of the country.” Trump added that the operation was conducted jointly with US law enforcement agencies. He promised to provide details at a press conference in Mar-a-Lago at 11:00 local time (19:00 Kyiv time).
The United States launched airstrikes in Venezuela on January 3. According to media reports, at least ten targets in Caracas were attacked, including the Fort Tiuna base, which houses the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense and the Army Command, the Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, and the La Guaira Naval Base. Maduro was captured early Saturday morning by the Delta Force, a special unit of the U.S. Army, U.S. officials told CBS News.
A former bus driver and trade union leader, Maduro became president of Venezuela in 2013 after the death of his predecessor and mentor Hugo Chavez, winning the election by a narrow margin. Prior to that, he served as foreign minister and vice president. in 2024, the Venezuelan electoral commission announced Maduro’s re-election for a third term, despite numerous evidences that the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had actually won.
Under Maduro’s rule, Venezuela has experienced hyperinflation, acute food and medicine shortages, and one of the largest migration waves, with more than 8 million citizens leaving the country. According to the weekly index calculated by Bloomberg, prices in the republic soared by 587% in 2025.
