Cuba defiant as it braces for post-Maduro era

The prospects for Cuba - a close ally of Nicolás Maduro's Venezuela - are now bleak, writes the BBC's Will Grant.

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The two nations have shared a political vision of state-led socialism since a fresh-faced Venezuelan presidential candidate, Hugo Chávez, met the aged leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, on the tarmac at Havana airport in 1999.

For years, their mutual ties only deepened, as Venezuelan crude oil flowed to the communist-run island in exchange for Cuban doctors and medics travelling in the other direction.

After the deaths of the two men, it was Nicolás Maduro - trained and instructed in Cuba - who became Chávez's handpicked successor, chosen partly because he was acceptable to the Castro brothers. He represented continuity for the Cuban revolution as much as the Venezuelan one.

Now he, too, is gone from the seat of power in Caracas, forcibly removed by the US's elite Delta Force team. The prospects for Cuba in his absence are bleak.