To promote a nonviolent transition to a Cuba that respects human rights, political and economic freedoms, and the rule of law.
Russian warships arrive in Cuba
Cause for concern
However there is reason for concern, Professor Jaime Suchlicki of the Cuban Studies Institute on May 5, 2020 shared a report by Soviet-born Canadian Professional Engineer, Paulina Zelitsky on Russian military expansion in Cuba. Zelitsky, a member of a design and construction team of a secret Soviet submarine base installation in Jagua Bay, Cienfuegos, Cuba, which operated for over 20 years during the Cold War, defected in 1971. The submarine base in Cuba was shut down in 1992, but Zelitsky,in 2020 reported the Russians were rebuilding their previously shuttered nuclear submarine base in Cuba.
Admiral Gorshkov Russian frigate [Author: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation]
Some Context
- On June 10, 2024 Cuban Foreign Minister back in Russia to attend BRICS meeting.
- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on May 9, 2024 while visiting Moscow wished Putin and the Russian Federation success in carrying out the special military operation.
- On May 8, 2024 adnAmerica reported that the number of “Cubans conscripted into fighting for Moscow are closer to 5,000.“
Just three days after the murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on February 19, 2024, Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Havana. Cuba’s state media, which did not report his death ahead of Lavrov’s visit. Instead, Cuban official media outlets welcomed the Russian minister “as a true friend of Cuba.”
The EU-CELAC Summit was held in Brussels from July 17-18, 2023, during which Havana successfully vetoed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bid to attend the Summit, with the help of both Caracas and Managua.
On June 28, 2023, Cuba and Russian defense ministers met in Moscow to discuss joint ‘technical military’ projects.
The Cuban dictatorship on May 24, 2023 voted against the World Health Organization resolution condemning Russian attacks on Ukrainian health systems. It was one of nine “No” votes against the Europe backed resolution.
On May 19, 2023 Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel declared to Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitri Chernishenko, “Cuba’s unconditional support for the Russian Federation in its confrontation with the West.”
Valery Revenka, Head of the Department of International Military Cooperation – Assistant to the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus for International Military Cooperation, on May 18, 2023 revealed that Cuban military personnel will conduct military training in the Republic of Belarus.
Miguel Diaz-Canel was in Moscow alongside Vladimir Putin unveiling a statue of Fidel Castro and confirming Havana’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on November 22, 2022,
On October 12, 2022 at the UN General Assembly Cuba was one of the 35 countries that abstained, and its ally Nicaragua was one of the 5 that voted against a resolution condemning the Russian Federation’s annexation of four Eastern Ukraine regions.
Cuba was one of seven countries on September 16, 2022 voting “no” at the UN General Assembly together with Belarus, Eritrea, Nicaragua, North Korea, Syria, and Russia. This “no” vote was to silence Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky from delivering a pre-recorded address at the UN General Assembly.
Russian top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov urged for the establishment of an international coalition with countries” that included Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Syria, Serbia, and Venezuela for its war against Ukraine on September 15, 2022.
On April 7, 2022 Cuba, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Vietnam, were among those who voted against suspending Russiafrom the UN Human Rights Council ( 93 voted to suspend, 24 against, and 58 abstentions.)
Cuba and Nicaragua on March 2, 2022 abstained from the vote condemning the Russian invasion at the United Nations General Assembly. ( 141 votes to condemn the invasion, 5 against and 35 abstentions).
Euronews reported on February 24, 2022 that “only Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Syria supported the Russian recognition of independence for the occupied regions in Luhansk and Donetsk.”
The Cuban government is spreading Russian propaganda both domestically and internationally defending Putin’s invasion, and repeating Moscow’s talking points.
Cubans dissenting from this official line on the island have been arrested.
Cuba has taken part in Russia’s International Military Exercises that in 2022 were held in Venezuela and Iran.
How we got here
On March 6, 2009 Secretary Hillary Clinton in Geneva, Switzerland announced the “Russian reset” with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov but things didn’t go as expected as Time Magazine’s Simon Shuster reported a year later when there were already signs that things were going in the wrong direction:
Last March, she had the honor of starting Obama’s charm offensive by presenting her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, with a little red button. It was supposed to have the Russian word for reset on it and was meant as a harmless bit of fun. But thanks to a spelling mistake somewhere in the State Department (presumably the Gimmicks Directorate), Lavrov had to explain that the button actually said overload. It caused some awkward laughter.
In September of 2009 the Obama Administration announced that they “no longer planned to move forward” with the missile shield in Eastern Europe and scrapped it, but pursued an alternative scaled down version that still bothered the Russians.
Hugo Chavez in October 2010 visited Moscow and an agreement was announced between the two regimes that Russia would build Venezuela’s first nuclear power plant.
In October 2011 the Russians lent Hugo Chavez in Venezuela four billion dollars to purchase Russian weapons. ” Venezuela became the largest importer of Russian arms for ground forces in 2011,” the Moscow based Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade reported in December 2011.
The hot mike, and the aftermath
On March 26, 2012 President Obama was caught on a hot mike telling then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” President Medvedev replied, “I understand. I transmit this (inaudible) to Vladimir.” President Obama went on to win re-election.
By 2014 Vladimir Putin responded to President Obama’s promise of “flexibility” by militarily taking part of Ukraine, backing Assad in Syria, and floating the idea of opening Russian military bases in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. Russian funding for weaponry in Nicaragua returned in 2014.
Russian Navy’s intelligence collection ship, the Viktor Leonov, docked in Havana just a day before the arrival of the U.S. delegation to negotiate normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States in January 2015. This was a month after President Obama and Dictator Castro announced their intentions to resume diplomatic relations. The Russian warship docked in a pier usually reserved for cruise ships to send a high profile message.
The Russian presence in the Americas was not limited to Cuba and Venezuela.
Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua “purchased” 50 new T-72B1 battle tanks at a cost of 80 million dollars in 2016 that attracted international media attention. ( It was learned later that the tanks had been donated by Moscow.) Armando Chaguaceda’s 2019 article in Global Americans titled “Russia and Nicaragua: Progress in bilateral cooperation” explained the strategic significance of these “donations.”
In 2016 it was also confirmed that, since 2013, Nicaragua had ordered four Project 14310 Mirazh patrol boats, two Project 1241.8 Molnia2 missile boats and four Yak-130 planes from Moscow. The donation of Russian equipment does come with a non-monetary price: the access allowed by Managua to Nicaraguan ports for the establishment, in 2017, of a Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS). Though the station was declared to be for “purely civil ends,” it has the capability of performing electronic intelligence and cyber operations.
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