In 2019, Russia proposed a trade: Venezuela for Ukraine.
At least that’s what Fiona Hill’s sworn testimony to Congress in 2019 says.
Fiona Hill was Trump’s Senior Director for Russia and Europe on the National Security Council, and during the first impeachment, she testified about a standoff over Venezuela in May 2019. When Russia had sent approximately 100 operatives to secure the Maduro government against a potential US intervention.
Her words:
“The Russians at this particular juncture were signaling very strongly that they wanted to somehow make some very strange swap arrangement between Venezuela and Ukraine. In other words, if we were going to exert some semblance of the Monroe Doctrine of, you know, Russia keeping out of our backyard... they were basically signaling: You know, you have your Monroe Doctrine. You want us out of your backyard. Well, you know, we have our own version of this. You’re in our backyard in Ukraine.”
Russia proposed a spheres-of-influence deal: we stay out of your hemisphere, you stay out of ours.
The Doctrines
This wasn’t a secret negotiation. Both powers announced their claims publicly.
Russia’s version came first. In August 2008, after the invasion of Georgia, President Dmitry Medvedev declared that Russia had “privileged interests” in its near abroad—former Soviet states along its borders. By 2024, Medvedev had grown more explicit, claiming Russia’s “strategic borders” extend to the Carpathian Mountains and that “Ukraine is definitely Russia.”
The Carnegie Endowment summarized: “Putin believes in spheres of influence—that as a great power, Russia has a right to veto the sovereign political decisions of its neighbors.”
America’s version arrived December 2, 2025. On the anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, Trump announced “a new Trump Corollary”:
“That the American people—not foreign nations nor globalist institutions—will always control their own destiny in our hemisphere.”
The National Security Strategy made it operational: “We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities... in our Hemisphere.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, January 3: “Ultimately, we’re going to control what happens next.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, December 2025: “If you were to ask for prioritisation, I would argue that something in our hemisphere for our national interest is more important than something in another continent.”
The possessive framing is consistent and deliberate. “Our hemisphere.” “Our backyard.” The entire Western Hemisphere as American property.
Two empires. Two doctrines. Same logic: great powers have zones of dominance, and the people living in those zones don’t get a say.
“The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.
They now call it the Donroe Doctrine... American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” —DJT
The Execution
Watch what happened in the 13 months since Trump’s return:
Ukraine side of the deal:
Pressure on Kyiv to accept territorial concessions
Threats to withdraw support
JD Vance and others floating “peace plans” that ratify Russian gains
Venezuela side of the deal:
December 2, 2025: “Trump Corollary” announced
January 3, 2026: Invasion launched, Maduro captured
Trump declares the US will “run the country” and extract “a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground”
Russia proposed the swap in 2019. By 2026, both sides are executing.
Trump lost 2020, delaying any American execution. But the pattern that emerged after his return—immediate pressure on Ukraine, immediate assertion of hemispheric dominance—is consistent with a framework that was waiting to be activated. Consistency isn't proof of coordination. But when a proposed deal and subsequent actions align this precisely, the burden shifts to explaining the coincidence.
Senator Bernie Sanders saw it immediately: “This brazen violation of international law gives a green light to any nation on earth that may wish to attack another country to seize their resources. This is the horrific logic of force that Putin used to justify his brutal attack on Ukraine.”
Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee: “What prevents China from claiming the same authority over Taiwan’s leadership? What stops Vladimir Putin from asserting similar justification to abduct Ukraine’s president?”
They’re asking the wrong question. Putin doesn’t need to claim the justification. He already has it. It was negotiated.
The Design
Russian intelligence services are not amateurs. The proposal fit Trump's psychology with remarkable precision.
The Guaidó wound was fresh. Trump had backed Juan Guaidó’s opposition movement. It failed. The military stayed loyal to Maduro. No popular uprising materialized. According to contemporaneous reporting, Trump was “pissed”—he felt the opposition had “failed him.” He told advisers he’d wanted the military option in 2018 and 2019 but hadn’t been given one.
The pattern was established. Trump responded to flattery. He preferred bilateral strongman deals to multilateral processes. He framed everything as winning or losing. He held grudges about perceived failures.
The leverage existed. The financial relationships were already in place—the mansion, the painting, the ongoing business interests. Moscow didn’t need to speculate about Trump’s motivations; they had a decade of observable transactions.
So Russia proposed a deal that happened to give Trump exactly what he wanted:
A “win” in Venezuela to erase the Guaidó humiliation
Strongman-to-strongman negotiation, no democratic opposition to “fail him” again
A framework that flatters American power (”your Monroe Doctrine”)
Oil extraction to monetize the victory
In exchange, Russia gets Ukraine—or at least American disengagement from its defense.
The Question
If the deal is this obvious—proposed in testimony, executed in public—the question becomes: why would Trump take it?
This is where the money enters.
I’ve been tracking a financial pattern for seven months. The transactions are documented in property records, auction data, Senate investigations, and Trump’s own words.
2008: Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev pays Trump $95 million for a Palm Beach mansion Trump bought four years earlier for $41 million. A $54 million overpayment during a financial crisis for a property Rybolovlev never lived in and later demolished.
2017: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pays Rybolovlev $450 million for a painting—the highest price ever paid for art at auction. The painting has since vanished from public view.
2021: The Saudi Public Investment Fund places $2 billion in Jared Kushner’s new investment fund, over the objections of the fund’s own advisers who cited the “inexperience of the Affinity Fund management.”
2025: Trump announces a $600 billion Saudi investment pledge. The same day, he lifts Syria sanctions “at the request of” MBS—his words.
2026: Venezuela invaded. Trump announces American oil companies will “spend billions” on infrastructure and extract the wealth.
The same Russian who overpaid Trump. The same Saudi who overpaid that Russian. The same Trump now executing a deal that benefits both.
The Epstein Question
Someone else noticed this pattern.
On May 30, 2019—37 days before his arrest and 72 days before his death—Jeffrey Epstein sent an email that included this line:
“is it a coincidence that the russian that bought the house in palm beach and knows all, is the same guy that sold a painting last year to mbs for 450 million dollars”
That same Russian. That same Saudi. That same pattern.
Epstein saw the triangle. He’s no longer available to testify about it.
The Logic
Let me be precise about what I’m claiming.
Documented facts:
Russia proposed a Venezuela-Ukraine swap in 2019 (Hill testimony, under oath)
Both powers have announced sphere-of-influence doctrines (public statements)
Trump invaded Venezuela and is pressuring Ukraine toward concessions (current events)
The financial transactions exist (property records, auction data, Senate documents)
We can debate about possible alternative motivations for Putin or Trump’s behavior.
But here’s what’s no longer debatable: the deal was proposed, and the deal is being executed. The financial relationships explain why this particular president would be the one to execute it.
Two declining empires, both captured by oligarchic networks, dividing up spheres of influence while their populations bear the costs.
In 2009, Vice President Biden declared: “We will not recognize any state having a sphere of influence.”
Both powers have now abandoned that position—while condemning the other for doing the same thing.
What Comes Next
Congress returns this week. The Kaine-Paul War Powers resolution has bipartisan sponsors.
Senator Schumer says the administration assured him “three separate times” they weren’t pursuing regime change. They lied. They’re on record.
The question is whether anyone will do anything about it—or whether the new world order of negotiated spheres simply becomes the accepted reality.
Venezuela didn’t get a vote. Ukraine didn’t get a vote. The 28 million people Trump is now “running” didn’t get a vote.
That’s what spheres of influence mean. The people inside them aren’t citizens with rights. They’re assets in someone else’s zone.
The deal was proposed in 2019. It’s being executed now. The only question left is who else is inside someone’s sphere—and when they’ll find out.
Here are a few previous articles where I dive deeper on specific parts of this.
The $95 Million Question — The Rybolovlev transaction
I May Have Said Too Much — Epstein’s email connecting the payments
The $600 Billion Question — Saudi pledges and policy concessions
He Said the Quiet Part Out Loud — The 12-hour pivot from fentanyl to oil
Maduroism Without Maduro — Why Trump sidelined the democratic opposition
Credit to Seth Abramson for surfacing the Fiona Hill testimony connection.
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