VLADIMIR Putin’s powerful fleet of warships, armed with hypersonic missiles, was received as a hero by communist Cuba.
Dramatic footage captured the new Russian frigate, Admiral Gorshkov, arriving with a 21-gun salute as it entered Havana Bay in a huge show of power.
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The hypersonic missile carrier leads a four-man naval flotilla, including a Kazan nuclear submarine and two other warships right on President Joe Biden’s doorstep.
They constitute a key part of Russia’s nuclear strike force.
The warships will be deployed to the Caribbean for military exercises in the coming weeks, amid rising tensions with the West.
And after the saber rattling in Havana’s backyard, the fleet is also expected to make stops in Venezuela – one of America’s long-time enemies.
Admiral Gorshkov displayed a huge Z – the sign of Putin’s war in Ukraine, which has plunged the world closer to nuclear collision than at any time since the Cold War.
And the Cubans were seen firing cannon fire from an 18th-century colonial fort to give the fleet a grand welcome.
Officials denied that the modern warship and accompanying Kazan submarine were armed with nuclear missiles on Saber’s visit this week.
However, they are believed to carry Zircon hypersonic missiles, as well as the Kalibr and Onyx missiles.
The weapon was designed to arm Russian cruisers, frigates and submarines for use against enemy ships and land targets.
Yesterday, the flotilla sailed 40 kilometers off the US coast, in a frightening echo of the Cuban missile crisis.
The US has been monitoring Russian warships and aircraft that are expected to arrive for the naval exercise and are likely to remain in the region through the summer.
Officials said: “As part of Russia’s regular military exercises, we anticipate that this summer Russia will conduct intensified naval and air activities near the United States.
“These actions will culminate in a global Russian naval exercise this fall.”
The US does not consider the movement involving a relatively small number of ships and planes to be threatening, but the US Navy will monitor the exercises, the official added.
A despotic Putin sees this as retaliation for the US, Britain and France supplying Ukraine with missiles for use on its territory.
He suggested that Moscow could take “asymmetric measures” in other parts of the world in response to Biden’s call to allow Ukraine to use US-made weapons to attack Russia.
This is not the first time that Russia has sent ships to the Caribbean.
Last year, the Russian navy training ship Perekop sailed to Havana, while Admiral Gorshkov was spotted in the same port in 2019.
Biden’s official stressed that the recent measure is certainly part of a Russian response to US support for Ukraine, but also an attempt by Putin to show off his navy – after losing several ships in Ukrainian attacks.
“This is about Russia showing that it is still capable of some level of global power projection,” the official said.
Russia’s close relationship with Cuba dates back to ancient times – as Fidel Castro’s death marked the symbolic end of the Cold War.
The Cuban President who brought the world to the brink of nuclear war invited Russian nuclear missiles to be based in Cuba in 1962 – just a few kilometers from the USA.
Speaking of Castro years later, Putin said: “His memory will forever remain in the hearts of the citizens of Russia.”
What was the Cuban Missile Crisis?
By Tom Malley, Foreign News Reporter
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is seen as the moment the world came closest to a nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union.
On October 27, the American destroyer USS Beale was paroling the U.S. blockade around Cuba.
The ship detected a Soviet B-59 nuclear submarine hidden beneath the blockade and dropped a series of unarmed depth charges as warning shots at the Soviet submarine.
But the submarine’s captain did not realize that the charges were not lethal and ordered the ship’s nuclear-tipped torpedo to be readied for launch.
The mistake would have started World War III — if only the submarine’s launch protocol hadn’t required every commander aboard the submarine to sign it.
Vasili Arkhipov, second in command of the B-59, refused to agree to the attack and ended up calming his captain.
Without Arkhipov’s cool head aboard the submarine, the attack would have escalated the Cold War into an all-out nuclear confrontation.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
