(Havana) Four Russian navy ships, including a nuclear-powered submarine, arrived in Cuba on Wednesday for a five-day stopover, AFP journalists noted.
The oil tanker Pashin and the tugboat Nikolai Chiker, decorated in the white, blue and red colors of the Russian flag, were the first to enter the port of Havana around 8 a.m. local time, followed shortly after by the frigate Almirante Gorshkov.
The Kazan nuclear submarine was visible on the horizon from the capital’s bay, according to AFP photographers.
“None of the ships carry nuclear weapons, so their stopover in our country does not represent a threat to the region,” the Cuban Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (Minfar) indicated last week.
It is a visit which “strictly respects the international rules to which Cuba adheres” and which responds to the “historic relations of friendship” between Havana and Moscow, he said.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez met in Moscow on Wednesday, according to the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
In May, President Miguel Diaz-Canel visited the Russian capital where he attended with President Vladimir Putin the parade marking the Soviet victory over the Nazis in 1945, against a backdrop of tensions with Western powers over the conflict in Ukraine.
During his last visit to Moscow in May, the Cuban leader wished Russia “success” in its war against Ukraine, according to the Russian agency Tass.
A Russian navy fleet visited Cuba in 2019, at a time of high tensions between Havana and Washington after Republican Donald Trump came to power (2017-2021).
For more than six decades, Washington has imposed a financial and commercial embargo on Cuba, which Donald Trump reinforced by including the island on his blacklist of countries supporting terrorism.
Joe Biden, his Democratic successor, kept it on this list and did not substantially modify the sanctions.
Russia is also the subject of Western trade sanctions over its war with Ukraine.
A patrol ship of the Royal Canadian Navy, the HMCS Margaret Brooke, is also expected in Havana on Friday as part of the 80th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, according to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
