• Submitted by: lena campos
• Politics and Government
• 07 / 29 / 2012

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A statement by the head of the Russian navy that his country is considering establishing a naval facility in Cuba underlined the warming relations between the former Cold War allies but sparked little initial concern in the United States.

Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov said Russia is “studying the creation of points for assistance and technical maintenance in Cuba, the Republic of Seychelles and Vietnam,” the state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Friday.

Talks with those countries on the facilities began “some years back” added Chirkov.

His comments reflected the Russian government’s campaign to expand its naval presence around the globe, first announced in 2010 by then-President Dmitri Medvedev, said Alvaro Alba, a Miami-based analyst on Cuban-Russian relations.

The former Soviet Union had 16 navy bases abroad, but Russia now has two. One is a major base in Sebastopol, in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and the other is more of a repair and resupply facility in the Syrian port of Tartus.

“There is more than a bit of smoke and mirrors here. The nuisance value to show to the U.S. that the Russians still matter is much more important than any real naval interest,” said Hal Klepak, a Canadian expert on the Cuban military. “The Russian navy is in no position to even show the flag effectively in the Americas, much less actually do power projection of any relevant kind.”

Alba also said he did not believe Chirkov’s comments would cause much concern. U.S. Navy warships held joint maneuvers with the Russian destroyer Admiral Chabanenko off the coast of Virginia last year, he said.

Jaime Suchlicki, head of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami, noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has not been particularly friendly” to the United States.

But while any major power would want to have naval bases abroad, Suchlicki added, the Russians “have not accepted that they are not a major power anymore.”

The Pentagon also seemed unexcited, with spokesman George Little saying that Moscow has a right to promote its interests around the world, the AFP news agency reported. “We also have a strong interest in good military relations with the Russians.”

Suchlicki added that Russia also has been expressing interest for the past two to three years in reopening the Soviet Union’s Lourdes Base near Havana, an electronic spying outpost that Putin shut down in 2001.

Putin at the same time shut down Russia’s base in Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay — also a former U.S. base during the Vietnam War — reportedly to make a friendly gesture toward Washington and cut costs following the economic chaos under Boris Yeltsin.

Elected to a third presidential term in March, Putin has complained that the Obama administration supported the Moscow street protesters who alleged widespread fraud in the vote.

The Soviet Union and Cuba were the tightest of allies during the Cold War, with Moscow sending Havana annual subsidies of $4 billion to $6 billion to prop up the lone communist government in the Western hemisphere.

Relations cooled after the disappearance of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, but began warming against after Cuban ruler Raúl Castro, a known admirer of Russia, succeeded his brother Fidel Castro unofficially in 2006 and officially in 2008.

Raul Castro visited Moscow earlier this month, at the end of a lengthy tour of China and Vietnam, for what news media reports described as meetings on bilateral relations, including improvements in military cooperation.

Source: BostonHearld.com