CARACAS, Venezuela — Cuban security forces who have helped guard and advise Venezuela’s leadership for years have begun leaving the country in recent weeks, according to 11 people familiar with the matter. The pullback comes as Interim President Delcy Rodriguez seeks to blunt U.S. retaliation and as Washington tightens an oil blockade that is squeezing Cuba’s fuel supply, Feb. 21, 2026.
The departures were first detailed in a Reuters investigation citing officials and people close to Venezuela’s ruling party, which said Cuban security forces have been sidelined from the presidential protection detail and from posts inside Venezuela’s military counterintelligence agency, known by its Spanish acronym DGCIM. Neither the Venezuelan nor Cuban governments responded to requests for comment in the report, and both have continued to issue public statements emphasizing their alliance.
Four of the people familiar with the matter said Rodriguez has shifted her personal security to Venezuelan bodyguards, a notable break from the arrangements used by former President Nicolas Maduro and the late President Hugo Chavez, who relied heavily on Cuban security forces. Two of the sources said some Cuban personnel, including medical workers and security advisers, have returned to the island on flights in recent weeks, while others remain in Venezuela in less visible roles.
The drawdown follows a violent rupture in early January, after a U.S. military operation captured Maduro; the Reuters report said the Cuban government put the Cuban death toll at 32. In a separate interview, Cuba’s health minister told the Associated Press that the U.S. fuel squeeze is threatening “basic human safety” as the island struggles to keep hospitals, ambulances and transport running amid fuel shortages.
What the Cuban security forces pullback means for Caracas
For years, Cuban security forces have been widely seen as part of Venezuela’s security architecture: advisers who train, monitor and in some cases protect top officials, according to former Venezuelan security personnel and analysts who follow the alliance. The reported removal of some Cuban advisers from sensitive jobs inside DGCIM could reshape how the state polices dissent within the military and manages intelligence sharing.
But a clean break is unlikely in the near term. Several people familiar with the situation said some Cuban security forces remain in Venezuela, including personnel tied to intelligence work who may be waiting to see how Rodriguez consolidates power. The same sources described an uneven drawdown, with some departures handled quietly and others occurring through regular rotation schedules.
Rodriguez has tried to balance competing pressures: reassuring hard-line loyalists who built their careers under chavismo — the political movement founded by Chavez — while signaling to Washington that her government can function without Cuban security forces in the most sensitive positions. In public, she has also kept up symbolic gestures toward Havana, even as the Cuban footprint is reportedly being reduced around her inner circle.
U.S. oil squeeze and Cuba’s fuel crisis
Washington’s pressure campaign has focused on fuel. In late January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency over Cuba and authorizing tariffs linked to oil supplies, a move the administration has framed as a bid to force political change in Havana. The policy has coincided with a sharp contraction of oil deliveries from allies that traditionally helped keep Cuba’s lights on.
On the streets of Havana, the impact has been visible in basic services. Reuters reported that trash has piled up in the Cuban capital as fuel shortages sidelined more than half of Havana’s garbage trucks, a snapshot of how the crunch is spilling into sanitation, transportation and public health.
UN human rights experts have criticized the U.S. move, warning that fuel restrictions risk sweeping humanitarian consequences. In a February statement, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said experts viewed the executive order as a serious threat to international law and urged a return to dialogue.
The fuel crunch has deepened Cuba’s reliance on overseas earnings and external support, tying Havana’s fortunes even more tightly to geopolitical shifts in Caracas. As Cuban security forces draw down in Venezuela, Cuban officials are also confronting the prospect of reduced leverage over a key partner and fewer channels to protect their interests on the ground.
A long, shadowy partnership
The relationship between Caracas and Havana has long blended ideology with hard economics: Venezuela’s subsidized crude in exchange for Cuban expertise, including doctors, coaches and security advisers. In 2019, a Reuters special report described military agreements that allowed Cuban advisers to embed in Venezuelan security institutions, including counterintelligence structures used to monitor the armed forces.
Even then, the scale of Cuba’s footprint was disputed. A 2019 Washington Post report noted starkly different claims over how many Cubans were in Venezuela, with Havana insisting most were medical professionals while U.S. officials alleged a large security contingent.
A separate 2019 analysis by the Wilson Center argued that measuring headcounts could miss the point, because relatively small numbers of Cuban security personnel can have an outsized effect when embedded in elite units and decision-making circles. The report said Cuban advisers worked within the highest echelons of Venezuela’s executive and security institutions and focused on “coup-proofing” measures meant to deter defections.
That history helps explain why the current shift is being watched so closely. If the pullback continues and Cuban security forces lose access to presidential protection and counterintelligence work, it could weaken one of the mechanisms that helped chavismo weather repeated crises. But even reduced, the Cuban role may persist in quieter forms — especially if oil once again flows to Havana through alternative routes.
For now, Rodriguez appears to be betting that putting distance between her government and Cuban security forces can buy her room to maneuver with Washington without provoking a full break with Havana. Whether that calculation holds may depend less on rhetoric than on the next shipments of fuel — and on how much of the old security relationship endures behind the scenes.
