Moscow - Three Russian warships will visit Cuba on Friday
for the first time since the end of the Cold War, the Navy said, in a
show of force in the region dominated by the United States.
'This will be the first visit to Cuba by Russian warships since
the Soviet days,' Navy spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo said Monday,
according to Russian news agencies.
The Admiral Chabanenko missile destroyer and two support ships
will port for five days on the Communist island just 145 kilometres
off the US coast.
The nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great and the Admiral
Chabanenko from Russia's Northern Fleet took part in joint war games
in the Caribbean last month in an exercise not seen since the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The show of force in US-patrolled waters coincided with President
Dmitry Medvedev's visit to Venezuela and Cuba on a four-country tour
of South America aimed at reviving Soviet-era alliances in the
region.
The Russian presence in the Western Hemisphere is seen as a
response to Washington's encroachment in post-Soviet states once
under Moscow's sphere of influence, including the use of warships in
the Black Sea to deliver aid to Georgia after the conflict with
Russia in August.
US State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood told reporters in
Washington that the United States does not have 'any fundamental
problem' with Russia developing military relationship with South and
Central American countries, and the exercises poses no threat to US
strength in the region.
'I don't think there's any question about where the preponderance
of military power comes from in the hemisphere,' Wood said.
The Navy said the warships' tour will end with a stop in
Nicaragua, the only state to follow Russia's lead in recognizing
Georgia's breakaway republics as independent after the war.
'The Russian Navy command believes the visits by Russian warships
to Venezuela, Panama and Nicaragua mean long-term prospects for
developing cooperation with these countries' naval forces in the
interest of developing stability and trust on the world's seas,'
Dygalo said.
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