The ‘USS Helena’ arrives at the Island one day after four Russian military ships
14ymedio, Madrid, 13 June 2024 — The U.S. Navy announced that one of its fast-attack submarines arrived in Guantánamo Bay this Thursday. The presence of the USS Helena, with nuclear propulsion, is part, says the Southern Command in a message published on its X account, of a “routine port visit” while “carrying out its global mission of maritime security and national defense.”
Although the ship arrives just a day after four Russian warships docked in the port of Havana, the Navy says that “the location and transit of the ship were previously planned.”
The Miami Herald reported on Wednesday that the United States followed closely, with several warships and planes, the arrival of the Russian ships, which passed less than 30 miles off the coast of Florida on Tuesday. The American deployment includes three guided missile destroyers (the USS Truxtun, the USS Donald Cook and the USS Delbert D. Black), as well as a coastguard vessel, the Stone, and a Boeing P-8 maritime patrol plane.
“We will always monitor any foreign ship that operates near our waters“
Although the U.S. authorities have insisted that the presence of Russian ships in Cuban waters “does not pose a threat,” they also clarified: “We will always monitor any foreign ship that operates near our waters.”
After several days insisting that the Russian naval detachment came in peace, Sputnik interviewed a specialist who thinks otherwise: “I think we can see this [the sending of the flotilla to Cuba] as a direct Russian response to the U.S. announcement about the so-called Freedom of Navigation exercise,” said Mark Sleboda, an expert in international relations and security and a regular defender of Putin’s policy. The arrival of Russian ships in Cuba is “a reminder to the United States that both [countries] can play this game,” he added.
On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Defense on its Telegram channel uses a much more diplomatic tone and limits itself to saying that the entry into Havana of the frigate Gorshkov represents the end of a “high-precision missile exercise” executed in the Atlantic. The visit to the Island is “informal” and part of Russia Day, which was celebrated yesterday, June 12, they added.
The “exercises” that the Russians carried out in the Atlantic come less than two weeks after President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use weapons provided by the United States to attack inside Russia with the aim of protecting Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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