Russian warships to visit Cuba in renewed Soviet-era ties (Roundup)

Dec 15, 2008, 18:39 GMT

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.