In a situation that stirs up memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Kennedy administration, Russia has deployed a Naval fleet to the Caribbean island 90 miles from the U.S., including an armed frigate and nuclear submarine.
The military gambit is seen as a provocation by Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to the billions of dollars in aid and weaponry U.S. President Joe Biden has sent to Ukraine since Putin’s 2023 attack on its smaller neighbor. Escalating the conflict, Biden has approved the firing of U.S.-provided bombs into Russia.
Putin’s naval detachment includes the guided missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the cruise missile submarine Kazan, in addition to the refueling vessel Academic Pashin and the Nikolai Chiker, a support tug, according to reports. The fleet joins its communist ally, China, which has already established military operations in the island nation.
The first of the armada entering Havana, the Admiral Gorshkov, fired a 21-gun salute, which the Cubans answered with cannon fire from an 18th-century colonial fort built by the Spanish. Russian diplomats carrying national flags were seen welcoming the crews.
The Admiral Gorshkov is one of Russia’s more modern warships with substantial weapons capacity and features to reduce its radar signature. It is capable of firing cruise missiles, anti-ship and aircraft missiles, and the new Zircon hypersonic missiles. It also has close-in weapons system mounts, according to military experts.
The four vessels are docked in berths usually occupied by cruise ships and are the largest show of force by the Russians in Cuba in many years. It was reported that Cubans will be permitted to tour the frigate, which is also armed for anti-submarine warfare.
On the way to the Caribbean island, the Russian warships conducted military exercises in the Atlantic, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed. They had practiced the use of high-precision missile weapons using computer simulation for targets up to 400 miles away.
U.S. officials said they had been tracking the vessels en route to Cuba and monitoring their military maneuvers from the Navy ships USS Truxtun and Donald Cook and the Coast Guard vessel Stone. The response also included a P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance plane and assets from Canada. The Russian ships are not thought to carry nuclear weapons.
During the Cold War in 1962, Russia elicited worldwide concern by attempting to build nuclear missile silos in Cuba. The situation was diffused after intense negotiations between President Kennedy and his Russian counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev.