Washington: A US navy submarine has arrived in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in a show of force as a fleet of Russian warships gather for planned military exercises in the Caribbean. US Southern Command said the USS Helena, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, pulled into the waters near the US base in Cuba on Thursday, just a day after a Russian frigate, a nuclear-powered submarine, an oil tanker and a rescue tug crossed into Havana Bay after drills in the Atlantic Ocean.
The stop is part of a “routine port visit” as the submarine travels through Southern Command’s region, it said in a social media post. Other US ships also have been tracking and monitoring the Russian drills, which Pentagon officials say do not represent a threat to the US. “We’ve seen them do these type of port calls before,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh
The exercises, however, come less than two weeks after Prez Biden authorised Ukraine to use US-provided weapons to strike inside Russia to protect Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Russian Prez Putin then suggested his military could respond with “asymmetrical steps” elsewhere in the world. Singh said it wouldn’t be a surprise to see more Russian activity around the US. The drills are in international waters, and US officials expect the Russian ships to remain in the region through the summer and possibly also stop in Venezuela, which is also a Russian ally.
Russian ships have occasionally docked in Havana since 2008, when a group of Russian vessels entered Cuban waters in what state media described as the first such visit in almost two decades.