Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López on Thursday claimed that Venezuela was allegedly a “testing ground for the use of unknown weapons” during the U.S. operation to capture Nicolás Maduro.
According to Padrino López, a Venezuelan socialist general actively wanted by U.S. authorities on drug trafficking charges, Venezuela was “bombed” with the assistance of “artificial intelligence of the highest level” during Maduro’s capture.
The regime official presided over a military academy handover ceremony in Fuerte Tiuna, Venezuela’s largest military complex and the location where U.S. Delta Force members captured the now-deposed Venezuelan socialist dictator Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on January 3, 2026.
Speaking to Venezuelan military officials, Padrino López asserted that weapons “never before used on a battlefield” were allegedly employed by U.S. forces during the law enforcement operation to capture Maduro — and referred to statements issued by President Donald Trump during his speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
“465 hours ago, that is to say 19 days and 9 hours, on this very military fort, on this very spot where we are standing right now, a military attack was carried out by the world’s leading nuclear power, the world’s most lethal power, which, as President Donald Trump said yesterday from Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, which is held annually there in Davos, he said expressly and clearly that they had used weapons that had never been used on a battlefield before,” Padrino López said.
“Weapons that no one else in the world had. And those weapons, that technology that they used against our people on January 3, 2026, have turned Venezuela into a laboratory where it was subjected to systematic bombing assisted by artificial intelligence of the highest level, where that aggression ended in what we already know, the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro Moros, the president elected by this people, and his wife, the first lady, Dr. Silvia Flores,” he continued.
Padrino López has served as Defense Minister since July 2014 and also serves as the socialist regime’s “Vice President for Defense and Sovereignty.” The Venezuelan general stands accused by U.S. authorities of having a long history of involving the Venezuelan military in illegal drug trafficking, using his position to facilitate the movement of air shipments of cocaine from Venezuela to Central America. The U.S. has an active $15 million bounty open for information that can lead to his arrest and/or conviction.
On Wednesday, speaking at the WEF in Davos, President Trump referred to the U.S. operation to capture Maduro during his speech.
“Two weeks ago, they saw weapons that nobody ever heard of. They weren’t able to fire one shot at us. They said, ‘What happened?’ Everything was discombobulated. They said, ‘We’ve got them in our sights. Press the trigger.’ And nothing happened. No anti-aircraft missiles went up,” President Trump said.
“There was one that went up about 30 feet and crashed down, right next to the people that sent it. They said, ‘What the hell is going on those?’” he continued. “Those defensive systems were made by Russia and by China. So, they’re going to go back to the drawing boards, I guess.”
Venezuelan regime officials and state-owned media have claimed over the past days that the January 3 U.S. law enforcement operation to capture Maduro left between “100 to 120” dead and a similar number of wounded — but has failed to disclose exact specifics under the claim that an exact death count cannot be properly quantified because the remains were too damaged and “blown to pieces.”
On Thursday, Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab, repeating the “between 100 and 120” death toll estimate, claimed that the the individuals killed were “massacred in a manner that is not only, I would say, aberrant and unjust, but also completely outside the bounds of legality.”
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Saab further claimed that the operation was carried out with “bombers, helicopters armed with missiles and chemical weapons,” which, he said, also caused damage in residential areas, “where, he warned, there were elderly people, children, and women, many of whom died.” Saab did not offered evidence for his claims.
Last week, Padrino López said that 47 Venezuelan military officials were killed during the January 3 operation in addition to the 32 Cuban security officials were killed in Caracas protecting Maduro. Hours after Maduro’s capture, Cuba’s communist regime confirmed that Cuban officials were protecting Maduro — a revelation that confirmed roughly 25 years’ worth of speculation over the Cuban military’s presence and influence in Venezuelan territory while also confirming that Nicolás Maduro did not trust his own people with his personal security.
The remains of the 32 killed Cuban officials arrived to Havana in small boxes last week, raising numerous questions as to what happened to them during the operation to leave their remains in such state.
Padrino López also reportedly instructed to review what the Venezuelan regime describes as the “Ayacucho Transformation Plan,” an initiative to adjust the capabilities of the nation’s military education system “in line with the country’s independence and anti-imperialist character.”
“War today is in the minds of each and every one of us. So war today is, I can say, a cognitive fact that must be studied. We must prepare the FANB for the new challenges of this century,” Padrino López said at the Thursday event.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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