A Russian warship fleet, including a nuclear-powered submarine, set sail from Havana port on Monday after a five-day visit to Cuba following planned military exercises in the Atlantic Ocean. And now no one knows what her next steps are.
The United States said this Monday not having information on the course of the Russian flotilla. “We don’t have information about where it’s going, but it’s important to put it in perspective. The Russians do this every few years, they make an excursion to Caribbean and Latin American waters,” the House National Security Council spokesman said at a news conference. Blanca, John Kirby.
Some have seen the exercise as a show of force by Moscow in the context of tensions as the United States and other Western nations support kyiv in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
He submarine, a frigate, a tanker and a tugboat Rescuers slowly left the port on Monday morning.
It is not clear what the next destination of the fleet is nor where it will dock next in the Caribbeanalthough US officials said days ago that the ships possibly They could also stop in Venezuela.
Biden administration officials said last week they were monitoring the vessels and confirmed that They did not represent a threat to the region nor did they indicate a missile transfer. Still, the United States docked a submarine, the USS Helena, at its Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.
The US naval base, located in the southeastern part of the island about 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) from the capital, Havana, is considered by the Cuban government as illegally occupied territory.
Last week, Russian ships arrived in port after the fleet successfully conducted military exercises in the Atlantic Oceansimulating a missile attack against targets that could be more than 600 kilometers (375 miles) away.
The fleet, made up of the frigate “Gorshkov”, the nuclear-powered submarine “Kazan”, the tanker “Pashin” and the tugboat “Nikolai Chiker”, was received in Havana with a 21-gun salute.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel visited the frigate on Saturday and interacted with the sailors, according to a post by the president on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Meanwhile, Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío rejected the presence of the US submarine at the Guantánamo base, stating that I was neither welcome nor invited.
A State Department spokesperson said last week that Russia’s stops in Cuba are “routine naval visits” and do not pose any danger.
On Thursday, a day after their arrival, hundreds of people They lined up to visit the frigate. The ship was also open to the public on Saturday, which is standard practice when ships come into port.
The Canadian Navy patrol vessel Margaret Brooke entered Havana Harbor on Friday.
With information from AP and EFE
