Russia’s navy is sending three ships and a nuclear-powered submarine to the Caribbean next week to conduct military drills with communist Cuba.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the ships that will be arriving include the frigate “GORSHKOV”; the nuclear-powered submarine “KAZAN”; the “PASHIN” fleet sea tanker and the salvage tug “NIKOLAI CHIKER”.
The four vessels will arrive at the port of Havana on June 12 and will stay until June 17.
Cuba claimed that the visit was “consistent with the historically friendly relations existing between Cuba and the Russian Federation and strictly abides by the international regulations” thus “their stop-over in our country does not represent any threat to the region.”
The statement also claimed that none of the vessels would be carrying nuclear weapons.
Russian sailors will participate in the planned training exercises and will then “go on a tour around places of historical and cultural interest,” the statement said.
A U.S. official said that the military exercises will include “heightened naval and air activity near the United States.”
“While we are disappointed that Cuba has likely agreed to host visiting Russian ships, we are not surprised,” the official said.
The official later confirmed the statement from Cuba that the submarine “is not carrying nuclear weapons, and poses no direct threat to the national security of the United States.”
The official said that these types of exercises are not uncommon but have “ratcheted up because of U.S. support to Ukraine and exercise activity in support of our NATO allies.”
The most recent development in the U.S.’s support for Ukraine was President Joe Biden’s decision to authorize Ukrainian forces to use U.S. weapons to attack targets inside Russia as long as the strikes were defensive in nature.
Ukraine has reportedly already capitalized on the new leeway granted to it by the Biden administration as reports surfaced earlier this week that it used a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, to destroy Russian S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems that were initially designed to shoot down aircraft but have been used to attack the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
“What we have done is provided Ukraine the ability to counter-fire, to fire back at those Russian troops that are firing at them, and to be able to take out their artillery batteries as they’re firing at the Ukrainians,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “I think that’s going to prove to be very, very helpful to the Ukrainians going forward.”
