WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. Navy submarine arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a show of force as a fleet of Russian warships gather for planned military exercises in the Caribbean.
The US Southern Command said the USS Helena, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, arrived in waters near the US base in Cuba on Thursday, just a day after a Russian frigate, a nuclear-powered submarine, a tanker and a rescue tugboat crossed into Havana Bay after carrying out exercises in the Atlantic Ocean.
The stop is part of a “routine port visit” as the submarine travels through the Southern Command region, he said in a social media post.
Other American ships have also been tracking and monitoring Russian exercises, which Pentagon officials say do not pose a threat to the United States.
“This is not a surprise. We’ve seen them do these types of port calls before,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Wednesday when asked about the Russian exercises. “Of course we take it seriously, but these exercises do not pose a threat to the United States.”
However, the exercises come less than two weeks after President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to attack inside Russia and protect Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Russian President Vladimir Putin later suggested that his military could respond with “asymmetric steps” in other parts of the world.
Singh said it won’t be a surprise to see more Russian activity around the United States in such global exercises. The drills are taking place in international waters, and U.S. officials expect the Russian ships to remain in the region through the summer and possibly also stop in Venezuela.
Russia is a long-standing ally of Venezuela and Cuba, and its warships and planes have periodically made raids in the Caribbean.
Russian ships have occasionally docked in Havana since 2008, when a group of Russian vessels entered Cuban waters in what state media described as the first such visit in nearly two decades. In 2015, a reconnaissance and communications ship arrived unannounced in Havana one day before the start of talks between US and Cuban officials on reopening diplomatic relations.
