The government of The United States ruled out that the next arrival at the port of Havana, in Cubathree ships and a Russian nuclear submarine pose a direct threat to its securitysince he considered that they are part of Russia’s regular military maneuvers.
After the Cuban Government confirmed on Thursday the visit of Russian vehicles between June 12 and 17, Pentagon sources told EFE they don’t care about these exercises.
“Russia’s deployments are part of routine naval activity and do not concern us as they do not pose a direct threat to the United States.“, they stated.
The Department of Defense expects Russia to carry out “intense naval activity near the United States in the summer” which could culminate in a global-scale exercise in the fall.
This naval activity would include stopovers by Russian ships in ports in Cuba and possibly also in Venezuela, as well as some air exercises in the Caribbean.
For Pentagon sources, this “It is by no means the first time that Russia sails through the Caribbean or stops in Cuba“, exercises that have occurred regularly since the George W. Bush Administration (2001-2009) until today.
They also said that Looking ahead, the United States expects more Russian military exercises to take place in this area “due to American support for Ukraine.”
As the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) did, the Cuban Foreign Ministry (MINREX) said in a statement that the visit “corresponds to the historical friendly relations” between the governments of Cuba and Russia and that it welcomes to the international regulations subscribed by Havana.
“None of the ships carry nuclear weapons, so their stopover in our country does not represent a threat to the region,” added MINREX, which also indicated that “visits by naval units from other countries are a historical practice.”
The ships that make up the Russian naval detachment are, according to the Havana statement, the frigate Gorshkov, the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan, the fleet oil tanker Pashin and the rescue tug Nikolai Chiker.
Admiral Gorshkov is the lead ship of the latest generation of frigates of the Russian Navy which in January 2023 carried out a Zircon hypersonic missile launch exercise in the Atlantic using a computer simulation. It can also carry Kalibr missiles. The Zircon has a range of 1,000 kilometers and achieves a speed of more than 11,000 kilometers per hour, according to the Kremlin. While, Kazan submarine has the capacity to fire cruise missiles.
Last week, two U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity that the exercise is “certainly” part of a broader Russian response to U.S. support for Ukraine, but it is also an attempt by Putin to demonstrate that his Navy is still capable of projecting global powerafter losing important units due to accurate Ukrainian attacks.
Ukrainian military officials said in March that Russia had lost a third of its Black Sea fleet to attacks during the last two years of war.
Russia did not notify the United States about the upcoming maneuvers, but the US Navy has been tracking the movements of these vessels, the officials said. Nor has the Russian press mentioned the now announced deployment.
Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday that Russia could deliver long-range missiles to third countrieswho would use these weapons to attack “strategic points” in the territory of Western allies that supply weapons to Ukraine, in what they called a “symmetrical” response to Western arms deliveries to kyiv.
