An intelligence report accessed by Infobae reveals that Nicolás Maduro dismissed an explicit warning from his own Minister of Defense regarding an imminent U.S. military operation to capture him, just six days before that operation was successfully carried out.
According to the document, the warning was raised on December 28, 2025 during a high-level meeting held hours before the presidential greeting at the Venezuelan Naval Academy. The meeting was attended by, among others, Cilia Flores, Diosdado Cabello, Jorge Rodríguez Gómez, General in Chief Vladimir Padrino López, and senior military officials.
It was Padrino López who "warned about the possibility of a military attack by the United States" and recommended suspending holiday leave, reinforcing military units, and increasing operational activity throughout the country.
Maduro rejected the warning with surprise. According to the report, he assured those present that intermediaries functioning as influence brokers between his government and U.S. officials had guaranteed him that there would be no military actions "against state institutions or against him or his family."
The then-leader was convinced that the deployment of the Operation Southern Lance was merely a pressure tactic, not the prelude to a direct action. This interpretation was supported by Cabello and Jorge Rodríguez, who argued that canceling Christmas leave "would create alarm within the Armed Forces and could incite internal uprisings."
The document is clear on this matter: "both Maduro and Cilia Flores dismissed the alert as credible and did not believe that Padrino López possessed the necessary strategic capabilities" to assess the threat at that moment of high tension.
While that meeting was taking place in Caracas, parallel diplomatic efforts were unfolding outside Venezuela. According to a revelation from The Washington Post, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Vatican, urgently called on the eve of Christmas the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, to offer Maduro a negotiated exit: asylum in Russia with guarantees from President Vladimir Putin, protection for his inner circle, and the possibility of retaining his assets abroad.
The Trump administration rejected that option. President Donald Trump insisted that Maduro should be transferred to U.S. territory to face the charges of narco-terrorism against him, along with a reward of 25 million dollars for his capture.
The report also states, citing Reuters, that officials from the Trump administration had contacts with Diosdado Cabello before and after January 3, 2026. Cabello was reportedly warned not to activate repression mechanisms or mobilize the bases of the ruling party or shock groups against the opposition. The document suggests that there were ongoing agreements to ensure the continuity of the Chavista power structure after Maduro's departure, which would explain why both Cabello and Jorge Rodríguez dismissed Padrino López's warning without hesitation in that meeting.
On that same January 3, U.S. military forces carried out Operation Absolute Resolution, extracting Maduro and Cilia Flores from Venezuelan territory. The operation resulted in loss of life and damage to property at Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas.
After the capture, the entire military command was renewed. Padrino López and the chief of Ceofanb, Domingo Hernández Lárez, were removed by the acting president Delcy Rodríguez on March 18, 2026. The head of the Aerospace Defense Command, José Luis Tremont Jiménez, was replaced hours after the extraction, and his successor in the position lasted only seven months before being replaced in August of this year.
The Vatican later confirmed that it attempted to mediate a solution for Maduro, although it described the leak of that private conversation as "disappointing," noting that the leaks did not accurately reflect the actual content of the dialogue.
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