The New Statesman.

For decades, Venezuela hoped to accrue a band of anti-American allies, China, Iran, and Russia.

Russia provided billions of dollars in loans and later restructured Venezuela's debt,

while Russian state oil

company Rosneft invested heavily in Venezuela's oil industry.

And in 2019, Russia offered Nicholas Maduro recognition and military backing after the US and

its allies through their support behind Venezuela's opposition.

That same year, according to a deposition given ahead of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump,

Russia signaled that they could ease off their support for Venezuela if Washington were to ease

its own position in Ukraine.

The testimony was delivered by Fiona Hill, a former senior director on the U.S.

National Security Council during the first Trump administration. I'm Megan Gibson, and you're

listening to Daily Politics from the new statesman. Fiona Hill joins me now to discuss that

Russian proposal, as well as the U.S.'s strike on Venezuela and what this means

for the global order.

You detailed how Russia had been proposing a, quote, strange swap arrangement, whereby

basically, Russia would take Ukraine and the U.S. could have Venezuela. Now, this was before the full-scale invasion

of Ukraine had even been considered, but it's remarkable in hindsight that there wasn't

more attention given to this at the time. Did anyone catch on to that at the time? Was it raised

as a thing in the media or in

wider circles? It wasn't really. And I mean, I think that's kind of why it's probably

resonated in such a major way, you know, now, because people are looking back, as you said,

...