Venezuela’s advanced, Russian-made air defense systems were not even hooked up to radar when U.S. helicopters swooped in to snatch President Nicolás Maduro, American officials say, rendering Venezuelan airspace surprisingly unprotected long before the Pentagon launched its attack.
Venezuela was unable to maintain and operate the S-300 — one of the world’s most advanced antiaircraft systems — as well as the Buk defense systems, leaving its airspace vulnerable when the Pentagon launched Operation Absolute Resolve to capture Mr. Maduro, four current and former American officials said.
Beyond that, an analysis by The New York Times of photos, videos and satellite imagery found that some air defense components were still in storage, rather than operational, at the time of the attack. Taken together, the evidence suggests that, despite months of warnings, Venezuela was not ready for the American invasion.
In short, the Venezuelan military’s incompetence appears to have played a big role in the U.S. success. Venezuela’s much-touted antiaircraft systems were essentially not connected when U.S. forces entered the skies over Venezuela’s capital, and they may not have been working for years, former officials and analysts said.
“After years of corruption, poor logistics and sanctions, all those things would have certainly degraded the readiness of Venezuela’s air defense systems,” said Richard de la Torre, a former C.I.A. station chief in Venezuela who now runs Tower Strategy, a Washington-based lobbying firm.
The Venezuelan military appeared to be taken by surprise by the U.S. operation, despite months of threats from Washington.
An assessment by The Times of photos and videos posted to social media, along with satellite imagery, shows that the U.S. military primarily targeted locations where Venezuela had deployed or stored Buk air defense systems.
In one location, storage units containing components of the Buk missile system were destroyed by U.S. aircraft before they were even deployed, indicating that the Venezuelan military was unprepared for the invasion that unfolded.
In La Guaira, a coastal city that buffers Caracas, several videos posted online showed a large explosion at warehouses in the port. Days later, the local governor, José Alejandro Terán, posted a video on his Facebook page of him touring the damaged warehouses. He said they had been used to store medicine for kidney patients.
The footage also showed the burned-out remains of a Buk missile launcher, along with what appeared to be missile or missile debris scattered between two warehouses.
Just a few miles away, in Catia La Mar, loud explosions were also reported during the night of the attack. Mr. Terán later visited the site and posted videos from the area, as did other social media users. The footage showed bombed-out warehouses containing several components of a Buk system, including launchers and a command vehicle, suggesting the air defense vehicles had been in storage, instead of being operational.
When Mr. Chávez bought the air defense systems from Russia, they were part of a spending spree worth billions of dollars that was supposed to remake Venezuela’s military, filling its arsenal with Su-30 fighters jets, T-72 tanks and thousands of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile systems known as Manpads. Before then, Venezuela had largely relied on U.S. military hardware, but as hostilities grew, Washington banned the sale of arms to the South American country in 2006.
With great fanfare, Venezuela announced it was buying the air defenses from Russia in 2009 amid tensions with Washington. Venezuela’s leftist president at the time, Hugo Chávez, heralded the weapons as a deterrent to American aggression.
How long the fragile peace with the United States will hold remains to be seen. Washington is threatening to use its naval forces massed in the Caribbean if Caracas does not heed its demands, including opening up oil fields to U.S. companies.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also pressuring the interim Venezuelan government to expel foreign advisers from Russia, Cuba, Iran and China, in a bid to assert Washington’s dominance over the country and the region more widely.