In moves that have gone relatively unnoticed on the current geopolitical chessboard, Russia has turned to an old ally for help in its “clash with the West.” Beginning early this year, high-level Russian officials began visiting Cuba, according to historian and global leadership analyst Jeremi Suri.
As both countries deepen their decades-old economic and diplomatic ties, Mr. Suri has identified a larger Russian aim: to use its position in Cuba as a counter-balance to U.S. support for Ukraine.
In this episode of History As It Happens, Mr. Suri, a scholar at the University of Texas at Austin, draws parallels to the Cold War relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union. As they did in the early 1960s, both nations today see an interest in cooperating against “unilateral coercive measures” by the U.S., in the words of Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Gerardo Peñalver.
But unlike the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, today’s Russian military assistance to Cuba should not be viewed as an existential threat but rather as a realpolitik ploy to antagonize Washington, Mr. Suri said. Moreover, Russia is seeking any friends it can find in the face of economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. in Europe following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The ally that Putin turned to very quickly was Cuba. Not because Cuba can do a lot to help Russia in Ukraine, but because Cuba is a needle he can use to prick the United States. Cuba has for the Kremlin today exactly what it had for Nikita Khrushchev in the early 1960s: location. It’s all about real estate,” Mr. Suri said. There is no other way to explain why a Russian naval ship recently made its way to Cuba from the Baltic Sea carrying 100 naval cadets and equipment for the communist island.
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