The Russian fleet will stay on the island for a few days. According to the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba (FAR), this deployment is a working visit.
“As we have pointed out on other occasions, visits by naval units from other countries are a historical practice of the revolutionary government with nations that maintain relations of friendship and collaboration”, the ministerial office said.
The crews of the Russian ships were received by the captain of the flotilla Juan Alberto Vázquez Rodríguez, head of the Department of Navigation and Naval Operations of the Revolutionary Navy, and by Ana V. Kosenkova, chargé d’affaires of the Russian embassy. Russia in Cuba.
Academic and political analyst Juan Antonio Blanco, who heads the Cuba Siglo XXI project, says that the Russian deployment in Havana represents One more sign that there is a global conflict that cannot be ignored.
“There are politicians in the United States who do not fully realize that it is not a question of avoiding war. It is that we are at war and that war has war fronts: in the Middle East, in Gaza, in Israel, in Lebanon, in Tehran, in Ukraine,” he says.
In this regard, he points out that the war has other manifestations of conflict in the diplomatic and political fields and in the field of mutual threats. He also adds that within the conflict there are anti-Western alliances, in which Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua actively participate.
“You cannot separate Cuba from the Russian problem, Venezuela from the Iranian problem, everything is part of the same problem,” he says.
No danger for the US
Blanco also stressed that the recent deployment of the Russian flotilla to Cuba does not represent any military danger.
“They do not have the capacity to attack the United States or any other country in the region with nuclear warheads. Even the previous fleet, which was in June of this year, and is capable of carrying rockets with nuclear warheads, did not carry them, despite the fact that we had information that Cuba requested it,” he said.
Blanco adds that a frigate capable of firing rockets that reach the United States, but with conventional payloads, is not capable of starting a war.
“It would be suicide for Russia because the first thing they would get is a burst of nuclear missiles.”
However, the academic points out that “These shows serve as a symbolic response for Putin” that he is very macho. The other thing is to make a provocation that deserved the greatest political and military response from the US to show Putin that this kind of thing is not to be trifled with.”
Strategies and doctrine
Erick de la Fuente, professor of International Relations at Florida International University, indicates that Russia has a strategy, a doctrine, according to which, if the United States is close to Eastern Europe, they will be close to its coasts or its borders. “That is why it has been present in Cuba for a long time, it has troops in Nicaragua, in Venezuela and the intelligence agencies,” he says.
He adds that, with the war in Ukraine, Russia did not have the resources to maintain disinformation and intelligence. “The war is complicated for both sides, but the war is still less popular and now that Ukraine has permission to shoot inside Russia, Putin sees this as complicated and is trying to raise tensions a little, by having this type of exercises or military presence in Cuban waters, because it is next to the US,” says the academic.
De la Fuente emphasizes that, with the deployment in Cuba, Putin seeks to add to his discourse within Russia, about what he does against the United States, because internally the war is presented more as a conflict against USA that against Ukraine.
The professor also points out that the deployment of Russian warships is taking place in the midst of Cuba’s worst economic moment. He says that electricity fails, on many occasions, for 16 or 18 hours, the pension of retirees is equivalent to $5 a month and a single package of eggs costs more than that.
“Cuba is running out of people. In the last six months, more than a million people have left and a large part of the population is also older, so the economic situation is not only very bad, the outlook is bad and the shortages are great. Although it has been able to make up for some things with Venezuela, Cuba knows that the Venezuelan regime has problems and that it is not the guarantee that it was there during the years of Hugo Chavez. For this reason, Cuba plays its cards with Russia and China”expresses.
He also adds that, “although the Chinese have intelligence bases” in Cuban territory, they have few investments there. Therefore, to bring economic aid, mainly oil, and guarantee the regime’s stay, Russia is more useful.
“Cuba is bankrupt, it has political problems, big social problems, apart from the shortages. Russia is like that kind of insurance to give stability to the regime and protect it and Cuba does the dirty work at the diplomatic level, disinformation, playing cards,” he insists.
Geopolitical game
On the other hand, Professor Erik de la Fuente points out that, unlike the times of the Soviet Union, It is not an ideological issue.
“There is no communism in Russia, far from it. Russia sees Cuba as an ally, but it is not going to give it anything for free. Putin charges a lot and Cuba obviously does not have the money to pay him and has a history of not paying loans, and it owes the Russians more than anyone else, so they pay it in another way,” he says.
For his part, Manuel Cuesta Moura, a human rights activist and manager of opposition projects to the regime Havana, He believes that the presence of the Russian flotilla seeks to normalize “the closure or the circle in which Cuba once again becomes a Russian piece in the conflict with the United States.”
He adds that this means that the island is once again, as was said during the Cold War, a beachhead: “A floating Russian launch pad in the vicinity of the United States, causing immense damage, once again, to the country’s sovereignty.”
Cuesta Moura explains that the current situation is different from what happened in the 1960s, when this type of action was part of a systemic geopolitical game.
“Cuba belonged to the system called real socialism and responded to the geopolitics of the Cold War in the confrontation between two systems. Here, the government (regime) is placing Cuba again in a strictly imperialist geopolitical game within the front against the US. But, now, in some way, in a Russian recovery of that imperialist impulse,” he concludes.
@snederr.
Source: Cuban Diary / CNN
