The death toll from the United States’ raid on Venezuela, launched to seize President Nicolás Maduro, continues to rise, exposing not only the human cost of the operation but also the accelerating erosion of international law and restraint. According to Venezuelan officials cited by the New York Times on January 4, at least 80 people – soldiers and civilians – were killed during the operation. Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López has confirmed that a “large part” of Maduro’s security detail was wiped out, while officials in Caracas accuse US forces of striking civilian neighborhoods. Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela, has announced that 32 of its citizens, including military personnel, were killed, prompting Havana to declare January 5 and 6 days of national mourning.

These figures may still be incomplete, but the picture is already grim. What Washington portrays as a precise and justified law-enforcement action has, in reality, unfolded as a violent regime-change operation with broad and deadly consequences. The raid, coupled with prior airstrikes and months of military buildup, represents a dramatic escalation in US policy toward Venezuela – and a warning to much of the Global South that sovereignty now offers little protection against American power.

US President Donald Trump has insisted that no American troops were killed, while conceding that several may have been wounded. Anonymous US officials told the New York Times that roughly half a dozen service members were injured. The imbalance is striking: dozens of Venezuelans and Cubans dead, entire security units destroyed, civilian areas reportedly hit – yet no confirmed American fatalities. This alone undermines any claim that the operation resembled an arrest or extradition. It was a military assault, executed with overwhelming force against a country unable to meaningfully defend itself.

American officials argue that the airstrikes and bombardments were intended merely to provide “cover” for capturing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, so they could be taken to the United States to face drug trafficking and weapons charges. Caracas has long rejected these accusations, describing them as fabricated pretexts designed to legitimize regime change. Even if one were to assume, for argument’s sake, that such charges had merit, they would still offer no legal justification for violating another state’s sovereignty through armed force.

Under international law, the kidnapping of a sitting head of state by a foreign power is indefensible. It violates the UN Charter’s prohibition on wars of aggression and the basic principles of sovereign equality. That such an operation........

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