This doesn’t look good.
A US Navy fast-attack submarine has surfaced and arrived in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, just on the heels of a group of Russian warships having arrived in Havana merely the day prior. The American nuclear-powered USS Helena arrived at the US base on Thursday, while a Canadian navy patrol ship has followed on Friday.
The Pentagon’s US Southern Command in a statement called it “a routine port visit…while conducting its global maritime security and national defense mission.” While both Moscow and Washington have tried to downplay these mirror deployments to Cuban waters, the whole spectacle is reminiscent of the Cold War, given it seems clear the US is using the nuclear submarine to signal strongly in response to Russia.
All of this is taking place a mere 100 miles off the Florida coast. The Admiral Gorshkov frigate and the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan just before arriving in Cuba had earlier this week conducted “high-precision missile weapons” training in the Atlantic Ocean.
In an effort to calm tensions that are the result of Russian warships being in the Caribbean, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry assured the world that “None of the vessels carries nuclear weapons,” in reference to the Russian vessels. Cuba further said the official Russian Navy visit to the port “does not represent any threat to the region.”
Military reports have indicted that the Helena has enough food and supplies on board to remain on station for up to an estimated three months.
Despite current efforts to downplay these maneuvers, Newsweek has pointed out that “It is unusual for the United States and other countries to disclose the precise locations of their submarines, but surfacing a stealth boat sends an unmissable military signal to potential adversaries.”
“The vessel’s location and transit were previously planned,” the Pentagon has said, but at the same time US defense officials have told various media publications that US and Canadian forces had been “actively monitoring” the Russian naval group’s movements across the Atlantic and as it came near the US East coast.
“We’re always, constantly going to monitor any foreign vessels operating near U.S. territorial waters,” a Pentagon press spokesperson said this week. “We of course take it seriously, but these exercises don’t pose a threat to the United States.”
Russian state media has declared that the Russian sub and accompanying vessels docking in Cuba gives the US a dose of its own medicine.
“I think we can definitely see this as a direct Russian reply to the general US declaration of conducting what it calls ‘Freedom of navigation’ exercises. Although, as far as we know, no one has challenged the freedom of navigation,” geopolitical analyst and American citizen Mark Sleboda, who lives in Russia, has told Sputnik.
President Biden has meanwhile at the Group of Seven summit in Italy sought to signal a message of resolve and commitment on Ukraine, with the White House saying that Putin “just cannot wait us out” and that Washington support to Kiev is not going to wane.
