Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is widely considered to be the potential successor to President Nicolás Maduro, has reportedly been spotted in Russia, according to a recent report released on Saturday.
Reuters, citing four well-informed sources, confirmed Rodriguez’s presence in Russia. However, the Russian foreign ministry dismissed these claims as “fake news.”
Earlier, Rodriguez made an urgent request on Venezuelan state television, urging the United States to verify the safety of Maduro and his wife. This came after former President Donald Trump announced that the couple had been captured during a U.S. military operation.
“We demand that President Donald Trump’s administration immediately provide proof of life for President Maduro and the First Lady,” Reuters quoted Rodriguez as saying.
In a past appearance, President Nicolás Maduro is pictured in Caracas, Venezuela, alongside his wife Cilia Flores and Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, as captured on May 24, 2018. (Photo by Marco Bello/Reuters)
Subsequently, Trump took to Truth Social, posting an image of Maduro in detention. The photo depicted him blindfolded and holding a water bottle, dressed in gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima, with a promise of his eventual transfer to New York.
Maduro previously served as Venezuela’s vice president before he took power in 2013 following the death of then-leader Hugo Chávez.
Jorge Rodriguez, who is Delcy’s brother and is the head of Venezuela’s national assembly, remains in Caracas, three sources told Reuters.
When asked about what the future of Venezuela holds with Maduro no longer in the country, Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends Weekend” that, “we’re making that decision now.”
President Donald Trump shared a photo of captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima after strikes on Venezuela, on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Truth Social/ @realDonaldTrump)
“We can’t take a chance of letting somebody else run and just take over where he left off. So we’re making that decision now,” Trump told Fox News. “We’ll be involved in it very much, and we want to do liberty for the people. We want to, you know, have a great relationship. I think the people of Venezuela are very, very happy because they love the United States. You know, they were run by essentially a dictatorship or worse.”
Trump later confirmed at a press conference in Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., that the U.S. would run Venezuela on a temporary basis.
The successors to Maduro are likely to be the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner and opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, an expert said Saturday.
Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez addresses the media in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 10, 2025. (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)
Jorge Jraissati, a Venezuelan who is the president of the Economic Inclusion Group, told Fox News Digital that “Machado and Gonzalez would assume a transitional government in Venezuela.
