In an obvious present of drive, a fleet of Russian warships and plane arrived within the Cuban capital of Havana on Wednesday.
Small teams of fishermen and curious onlookers lined the Malecon seafront boulevard in mild rain to welcome the ships as they handed the 400-year-old Morro fortress on the harbor’s entrance.
The first to reach was a gas ship, the “Akademik Pashin” and a tug, the “Nikolay Chiker,” whereas a Russian navy frigate and nuclear-powered submarine waited offshore and have been anticipated to enter the harbor by mid-morning.
The frigate and submarine, a part of the group of 4 Russian vessels that arrived off Cuba on Wednesday, had carried out missile drills within the Atlantic Ocean en path to the island, Russia’s Defense Ministry mentioned the day gone by.
Cuba mentioned final week that the go to was commonplace apply by naval vessels from international locations pleasant to Havana. The communist-run authorities’s Foreign Ministry mentioned the ships carried no nuclear weapons, one thing echoed by U.S. officers.
“We have been monitoring the ships’ paths closely,” a U.S. official advised Reuters on situation of anonymity late Tuesday. “At no point have the ships or submarine posed a direct threat to the United States.”
Havana is simply 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Key West, Florida, house to a U.S. Naval Air Station. And the timing of the go to – because the Biden administration ponders how far to go in serving to defend Ukraine in opposition to Russia – suggests greater than “standard practice,” mentioned William Leogrande, a professor at American University.
“The visiting Russian warships are Putin’s way of reminding Biden that Moscow can challenge Washington in its own sphere of influence,” Leogrande mentioned.
The stopover additionally coincides with Cuba’s worst social and financial disaster in a long time, with shortages of the whole lot from meals, medication and gas and rising discontent on the streets.
Source: www.dailysabah.com