According to Cuban authorities, a Russian nuclear-powered submarine will dock in Havana next week. The nuclear submarine “Kazan” and three other Russian naval ships will be stationed in the Cuban capital from June 12 to 17, including the missile frigate “Admiral Gorshkov,” an oil tanker and a salvage tug, the Cuban Defense Ministry said on Thursday. “None of the ships are carrying nuclear weapons,” the ministry stressed. Their stay in Cuba “does not pose a threat to the region.”
The unusual stationing of Russian naval vessels in the immediate vicinity of the United States comes amid increasing tensions between Russia and the West over Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
During the Cold War, Cuba was an important ally of the then Soviet Union. The stationing of Soviet nuclear missiles on the island triggered the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the world was on the brink of a nuclear war between the two superpowers, the USA and the USSR, for two weeks.
Russia has strengthened its relations with the communist government in Cuba since 2022 in search of new trading partners. In November 2022, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel traveled to Moscow to meet Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. In April 2023, the Cuban President assured Moscow of “Cuba’s unconditional support” in its “fight with the West.” Cuba did not criticize the Russian attack on Ukraine.
In response to an offensive launched by Russian troops in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, the United States, Germany and other Western countries last week allowed Ukraine to use weapons supplied by them against targets in the Russian border region for the first time since the war began. US President Joe Biden reiterated on Thursday that the weapons supplied by his country to Ukraine should not be used to attack Moscow or other targets inside Russia.
When this decision was announced last Thursday, a government official in Washington made it clear that this permission only applied to counterattacks in defense of the Kharkiv region. In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to supply other countries with Russian weapons that could then be directed against Western targets.