A Russian nuclear-powered submarine – which is not going to be carrying nuclear weapons – will go to Havana subsequent week, Cuba’s communist authorities have introduced, amid rising tensions with the US over the struggle in Ukraine.
The nuclear submarine Kazan and three different Russian naval vessels, together with the missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov, an oil tanker and a salvage tug, will dock within the Cuban capital from 12-17 June, Cuba’s ministry of the revolutionary armed forces stated in an announcement.
“Not one of the vessels is carrying nuclear weapons, so their stopover in our nation doesn’t characterize a menace to the area,” the ministry stated.
The announcement got here a day after US officers stated that Washington had been monitoring Russian warships and plane that had been anticipated to reach within the Caribbean for a army train. They stated the train could be a part of a broader Russian response to US help for Ukraine.
The US officers stated that the Russian army presence was notable however not regarding. Nonetheless, it comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin has recommended that Moscow might take “asymmetrical steps” elsewhere on the earth in response to President Joe Biden’s resolution to permit Ukraine to make use of US-provided weapons to strike inside Russia to guard Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis.
The bizarre deployment of the Russian army so near the US – notably the highly effective submarine – comes amid main tensions over the struggle in Ukraine, the place the western-backed authorities is combating a Russian invasion. The Russian vessels’ go to to Cuba can even overlap with Biden’s go to to the G7 leaders summit in Italy.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel met with Putin final month for the annual 9 Might army parade on Purple Sq. exterior the Kremlin.
In the course of the chilly struggle, Cuba was an necessary consumer state for the Soviet Union. The deployment of Soviet nuclear missile websites on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Disaster of 1962, when Washington and Moscow got here near struggle.
Relations between Russia and Cuba have change into nearer since a 2022 assembly between Diaz-Canel and Putin.
In the course of the Russian fleet’s arrival on the port of Havana, 21 salvoes will probably be fired from one of many ships as a salute to the nation, which will probably be reciprocated by an artillery battery from Cuba’s revolutionary armed forces, the international ministry stated.
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