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KIM IVERSEN • LARRY C. JOHNSON
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Kim Iversen
SPECIAL ADDENDUM
Did Russia Just Send a Message to Donald Trump? Who Ratted out Maduro?
On January 6, Russia launched three major missile strikes against US-owned facilities in Ukraine. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian ballistic missiles decimated the Oleina oil extraction plant, which is owned by the American Bunge company from Saint Louis. Its official name is the Dnipropetrovsk Oil Extraction Plant, located in Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk), central Ukraine. It is a major sunflower seed processing facility specializing in crushing, refining, and bottling sunflower oil.
Furthermore, in western Ukraine, in the Transcarpathian region, Russian kamikaze drones, together with ballistic missiles, caused critical damage to the Flex plant, which also belonged to American investors. Flex Ltd. (formerly Flextronics), a Singaporean-American company headquartered in Austin, Texas, operates a major manufacturing site in Mukachevo (Zakarpattia Oblast, western Ukraine), which opened in 2012. This facility specializes in civilian electronics production (e.g., household appliances like coffee machines, printer components, and injection-molded plastics). It employs thousands and was significantly damaged in a previous Russian missile strike on August 21, 2025, injuring workers and sparking international commentary as an attack on US-owned infrastructure.
Russia also launched a massive missile attack on the American-owned marine terminal Olimpex, which is considered the largest in the Odessa region. This is the second time this year that Russia hit the terminal (I wrote about it in July). This terminal is one of the largest grain export facilities in the country, with an annual throughput capacity of up to 5 million tons. However, Ukraine was moving more than grain through Olimpex. According to witnesses, even though this facility was protected by Patriot air defense systems, the Russian missiles hit the terminal unimpeded. The subsequent explosions turned out to be so powerful that a supermassive mushroom cloud arose over Odessa, which indicates that this marine terminal contained numerous warehouses filled with NATO weapons.
I don’t know if this fulfills Russia’s promise to retaliate for the US-backed December 28 failed drone attack on Putin’s official residence in Novgorod, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that three US-owned facilities that appear to produce or warehouse weapons for the Ukrainian war effort were attacked on the same day.
Shifting gears to Venezuela, I think the two most likely candidates for the betrayal of Nicholas Maduro are:
- Director of SEBIN: Major General Alexis Rodríguez Cabello Appointed in October 2024, he remains in position as of early January 2026. He is a cousin of Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and has been sanctioned by the U.S. for alleged human rights abuses. The acronym SEBIN stands for Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia Nacional in Spanish. This translates to Bolivarian National Intelligence Service in English. It is Venezuela’s primary civilian intelligence and secret police agency, established in 2010 as a restructured successor to the former DISIP (Dirección de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención). The agency reports to the executive branch (historically the Vice President) and has been widely criticized by human rights organizations for political repression, arbitrary detentions, and alleged torture.
- Director of DGCIM (and Commander of the Presidential Honor Guard): Major General Gustavo González López Appointed by Delcy Rodríguez on January 6, 2026, replacing the previous director. González López is a longtime Chavista hardliner who previously served as SEBIN director (2019–2024) and Minister of Interior and Justice. The acronym DGCIM stands for Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar in Spanish. This translates to General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence in English. It is Venezuela’s military intelligence agency, responsible for countering espionage, monitoring potential threats within the armed forces, investigating alleged plots against the government, and handling internal security matters related to the military. The DGCIM has been widely accused by human rights organizations (including the United Nations) of systematic torture, arbitrary detentions, and extrajudicial actions as part of state repression.
Given Gustavo González López’s close ties with Delcy Rodríguez, I am inclined to believe that he was the one who made sure that Venezuela’s air defense systems were inactive during the US abduction of Nicholas Maduro. However, neither González López nor Rodríguez Cabello are named in the Maduro indictment… though Cabello’s cousin is a named defendant. Stay tuned.
I did three fascinating podcasts today. For the second consecutive year I did the first live podcast with the boys of the Duran. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Alex and Alexander in person yet, but we have developed a genuine friendship during the course of the war in Ukraine. My second adventure was with Danny Davis. I was late in arriving for the interview because I had written down the wrong start time. Still, we had a fascinating chat. Last, but not least, Mario Nawfal invited me back to discuss Venezuela. Mario accompanied the Judge and me when we did our interview last March with Sergei Lavrov:
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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
Why Venezuela’s Military did Not Fight? A negotiated surrender.
“That being said, Delcy Rodríguez’s defiant televised address, condemning the US as an illegal invader, could be a performative act strictly in keeping with her side of a clandestine bargain…
Her public fury and vows of resistance provide essential political cover, allowing her to maintain credibility and authority with the Bolivarian base and military while privately adhering to the terms that permitted Maduro’s removal.
This calculated display of defiance ensures the Venezuelan government surviving architecture can manage the transition, positioning Rodríguez as a leader of “resistance” rather than a collaborator in a negotiated surrender.”
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“Yet despite Venezuela possessing advanced air defenses like the S-300 and portable MANPADS useful against helicopters, the Venezuelan military did not deploy them against the US assault.
Trump concluded by asserting that the United States maintained the option to execute further strikes against Venezuela if necessary.
The meticulously crafted narrative of a daring military raid, complete with operational specifics and tales of heroism, serves a crucial political purpose, to obscure the far more likely scenario of a negotiated surrender by Venezuela.
By glorifying the violent spectacle of a capture, the account actively suppresses the inconvenient truth that the operation’s success almost certainly required, and resulted from, a prior agreement with powerful factions within the Maduro regime itself.
The Venezuelan government and military’s primary allegiance was to its own institutional survival and the stability of the state it embodies.
This emphasis on overwhelming force masks a behind-the-scenes bargain where regime elites, particularly in the military and intelligence services, exchanged the president for guarantees of their own safety, political survival, and protection from prosecution, transforming a potential bloody invasion into a managed transition that served both the invading power and the existing power structure, at the expense of a revolutionary narrative.”
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica3/globalelite_la581.htm