Alexander Dugin, the fascist philosopher known as “Putin’s Rasputin”, said: “The capture of Maduro demonstrates that international law no longer exists — only the law of force applies.”

Alexey Pushkov, a Russian senator, accused the US of returning the world to “the savage imperialism of the 19th century”, adding: “Won’t the ‘triumph’ turn into a disaster?”

“The United States carried out a coup in Venezuela, struck the country, and demonstrated that international law means nothing to a nation that considers itself a hegemon,” said Igor Girkin, a former soldier and FSB officer turned commentator.

According to Michael Kofman, a Russian military analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Trump administration’s decision to strike Venezuela without even the “veneer of justification” “substantially frays” any sense of international order.

He adds that it “will make it much harder in the future for the US to convince other states that this type of behaviour should be punished”.

“By using force to assert its hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, the US is trading these short-term gains for a long-term structural cost to its overall position in the international system and to the advantages it enjoys over its rivals Russia and China,” he said.