A Russian anti-submarine destroyer and two logistical warships docked in Cuba on Friday, a thumb-your-nose port call aimed at Washington in waters just 145km from Florida.
The arrival extends a tour that included stops in Venezuela and Panama and shows Moscow’s desire to flex some muscle in the US’ backyard. It comes even as Cuban President Raul Castro reaches out to the US, offering to negotiate directly with US president-elect Barack Obama and proposing an unprecedented swap of political prisoners.
“That is Cuba’s diplomatic specialty, playing both sides, or all sides, on every issue,” said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programs at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.
PHOTO: AP
Russian sailors in white and tan dress uniforms stood at attention on the deck of the Admiral Chabanenko destroyer, which chugged into Havana Bay amid a cloud of gray smoke. The ships will be moored until Tuesday and the crew planned a tour of Havana that includes a trip to a Cuban naval school.
A ceremonial Cuban cannon fired a 21-blast salute that rattled the windows of nearby buildings, and a naval band waiting on a cruise ship dock played the Russian and Cuban national anthems. A hulking barge that frequently ferries US food to the island happened to be waiting in the area but had to move to make room for the Russian warships. It was unclear whether it had any US cargo aboard.
Washington’s nearly 50-year-old trade embargo prohibits US tourists from visiting Cuba, but the US has allowed cash-only sales of its agricultural products to the island since 2000 and has long since become the country’s largest source of food.
Erikson, author of a new book called Cuba Wars, said he was not surprised to see Russian ships come to Cuba at the same time the communist government is promoting a thawing in its relations with Washington.
“Cuba has always been a country that wants to have its cake and eat it to,” he said. “They want to keep the United States as the No. 1 enemy and at the same time benefit from US travel and trade.”
The Soviet Union provided billions of dollars in trade and annual subsidies to Cuba before its 1991 collapse. Relations soured after that, but the Cold War allies have become close again, with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visiting Havana last month.
Friday marked the first time Russian military ships have visited Cuba since the end of the Soviet era. About 100 Cubans — as well as tourists from Russia and other foreign destinations — watched the arrival from a nearby sidewalk. The crowd grew so large that police blocked off the right lane of a crowded boulevard adjacent to the bay.
“This shows relations with Russia never deteriorated,” said Eric Hernandez, a naval administrative employee who left his office across the street for a closer view. “Russia is a brother nation to Cuba, and Cuba has brother nations all over the world, despite what the United States wants.”
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS