Russia is set to increase its military presence in Nicaragua after its parliamentary upper house, the Federation Council, ratified its cooperation agreement with the communist Ortega regime on Wednesday — a deal that Nicaraguan dissidents denounced turns their country into a “Russian military base.”
Over the past years, the communist regime led by dictatorial husband-and-wife couple Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo has received a significant amount of support from Russia that has allowed the regime to expand and reinvigorate its brutally repressive apparatus and to silence dissent in the country — including the establishment of a Russian-operated “police training” center in the outskirts of Nejapa that is largely believed to be a Russian intelligence center. Nicaragua is one of the few countries in the world that supports Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia territories.
In 2023, Ortega publicly admitted that Russian assistance helped him repress the 2018 wave of anti-communist protests in Nicaragua, which left over 300 dead. Both countries signed a new military agreement in Moscow in September 2025 during the official visit of Julio César Avilés, commander of the Nicaraguan Army.
At press time, neither Russia nor Nicaragua has provided full details on the contents of the military agreement. The Russian news agency TASS reported that the now-ratified agreement contains provisions that call for the joint training of troops, cooperation between military educational institutions, and the exchange of information towards “countering the ideology of extremism and international terrorism.” According to the left-wing propaganda network Telesur, the agreement has a formal five-year duration that can be extended, something that the outlet affirmed “assures long-term Russian influence in the region.”
Félix Madariaga, a Nicaraguan former political prisoner of the Ortega regime banished from his country, told the newspaper La Prensa that the agreement is an “act of treason” of great concern which, together with the Russian spy base that is believed to operate near the Nicaraguan capital, turns Nicaragua into a “Russian military base, starting today.”
Madariaga further explained that the agreement constitutes the “transformation of Nicaragua into a satellite of Vladimir Putin,” letting the country be used as an operational platform at the service of Russian interests. Madariaga emphasized that the agreement is a “blank check” in favor of Moscow which contains broad, ambiguous areas of cooperation such as “electronic warfare” or “radiological, chemical, and biological protection.”
Madariaga also spoke with the outlet 100% Noticias and warned that the agreement’s consequences could also impact the security of neighboring Central American nations such as El Salvador, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, describing the Ortega family’s “servility” to Russia as something that “not even Putin’s great traditional allies dared to cross” at a geopolitical level. He also urged the United States, the European Union, and other nations and international organizations to oppose Russia’s plans to establish a military base in the Western Hemisphere.
“It is essential to express our categorical rejection. What has taken place today in Moscow is not a routine act of bilateral cooperation; it is the formalization of an unacceptable plan — the transformation of Nicaragua into a satellite state of Vladimir Putin and an operational platform serving his interests,” Madariaga told 100% Noticias.
“So allowing Nicaraguan territory to be used as a pawn in other people’s wars, as a springboard for Russian operations, as a base for hostilities that Nicaragua has not declared, is a betrayal of Nicaragua.”
A Nicaraguan security expert, who spoke with La Prensa on condition of anonymity, affirmed that the agreement’s lack of transparency could lead to a strengthening of the Nicaraguan regime’s repressive capabilities, and stressed, “What Russia has always sought through bilateral military agreements is to ensure the stability of the regime.”
The expert argued that Russia’s decision to bolster its military cooperation with the Nicaraguan regime is a response from Vladimir Putin to President Donald Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” and America’s increased pressure on Cuba and Nicaragua. The security analyst noted that Putin “could lose all influence in the Western Hemisphere, specially since he’s already lost Venezuela.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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