Russian ship docks in Cuba for first official visit in years

On Tuesday, the Russian navy’s Perekop training class ship docked in Havana. The ship was greeted by a series of cannon fire from a nearby colonial fort.

While in Cuba for a four-day visit, Perekop sailors will carry out a wide range of activities, according to Cuban state news service Prensa Latina. Members of the Cuban public will also have the opportunity to tour the ship.

This is the first official visit by a Russian navy vessel to Cuba in years, and it is yet another sign of the rekindling of relations between the two Cold War allies after the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly spelled doom for Cuba’s economy.

While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has ostracized it, the Cuban government has increasingly defended Moscow.

“We are condemning, rejecting, NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel told Russian-controlled network RT in a rare May interview.

He also criticized US economic sanctions on Russia, while hailing Russian “cooperation and collaboration projects” under development in Cuba.

The two countries also announced a series of agreements and met with high-ranking delegations. The deals include allowing Russia to lease land in Cuba for up to 30 years, develop seaside tourist facilities near Havana, open a supermarket stocking Russian goods and supply the island with much-needed fuel.

According to Jorge R. Piñon, a senior fellow at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia has sent Cuba more oil than at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union.

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So far in 2023, Piñon has estimated that Russia has delivered approximately $167 million worth of oil.

Oil has been crucial for Cuba, which has been struggling with cash this year as shortages have led to queues for days to fill up cars across the island.

rekindling ties

During much of the Cold War, Cuba and the former Soviet Union cultivated deep ties.

The USSR brought thousands of diplomats, spies and military advisers to the island and built an imposing embassy in Havana, meant to symbolize a sword in the heart of US imperialism.

A generation of Cubans braved the unknown cold to study in Soviet countries. A popular TV game show called “9550” – for the number of kilometers separating Cuba from Russia – quizzed Cubans about Soviet life with the grand prize of a paid trip to the USSR.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its main trading partner and fell into a deep economic depression. Since then, Cubans regard their proximity to Russians with deep nostalgia or with disdain for a failed marriage.

Now, the rekindled relationship has some Cuban observers lamenting a missed opportunity for the US.

While former US President Barack Obama has restored diplomatic ties with Cuba and eased economic sanctions, his successor, President Donald Trump, has reversed much of that overture.

Incumbent President Joe Biden has largely maintained Trump-era sanctions while demanding that Cuba release prisoners jailed for participating in widespread protests two years ago.

“It seems that under Trump and followed by Biden, the US has pretty much given up the field,” said Ric Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, which promotes greater engagement between the US and Cuba.

“There has been a very modest easing of sanctions, mostly citing humanitarian concerns and opening up travel, shipping and resupply at the embassy and consulate, but we have seen a White House that is otherwise unconcerned about Cuba,” Herrero said.

But the top US diplomat in Havana said talk of a greater Russian presence in Cuba so far appears to be lip service.

“There is a great Spanish expression that says ‘between what was said and what was done there is a big gap,’” Benjamin Ziff, chargé d’affaires at the US Embassy in Havana, told the CNN .

“We haven’t seen, talking to our contacts here, any evidence of Russia’s rise in anything and, frankly, I think the Cuban government would be making a huge mistake if they were looking to follow that model and not the model 90 miles away that is 300 years old. of history”, he added, referring to the USA.

The Russians are not the only ones wielding military might in Cuba. On Tuesday, the Cuban government criticized the US for the three-day visit of its nuclear submarine to the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, calling it “a provocative escalation”.

More than sixty years after the US and USSR clashed over Soviet nuclear missiles secretly placed in Cuba, East and West still seem to be squabbling over who will wield the most influence over the island.

Despite the high cost of the war in Ukraine and economic sanctions, Russian officials say they are committed to Cuba.

“Cuba was and remains Russia’s most important ally in the region,” Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said during a meeting with his Cuban counterpart, Alvaro Lopez Miera, in late June in Moscow.

“We are ready to assist Liberty Island and support our Cuban friends,” said Shoigu.