A U.S. Navy fast-attack submarine arrived in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay on Thursday, hard on the heels of a Russian flotilla’s arrival in Havana 24 hours earlier.
The USS Helena, one of around two dozen Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered, conventionally armed boats, was making “a routine port visit…while conducting its global maritime security and national defense mission,” the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) said in a statement on social media.
On Wednesday, Cuban armed forces welcomed the Russian Northern Fleet missile frigate Admiral Gorshkov with a 21-cannon salute as the fleet flagship led the Yasen-M-class cruise missile submarine Kazan into Havana Bay for a stopover from June 12-17.
“None of the vessels carries nuclear weapons,” Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said earlier this week.
The visit, roughly 100 miles south of the Florida Keys, “does not represent any threat to the region,” the Cuban government said.
The U.S. Navy‘s Los Angeles-class submarines were built in the Cold War and are armed with torpedoes and Tomahawk and Harpoon missiles for land and sea targets.
With nuclear propulsion effectively granting unlimited operational range, the Helena carries enough food and supplies to remain on station for an estimated three months, a period referred to as a vessel’s “endurance.”
The Helena was moored at Virgnia’s Naval Station Norfolk less than three weeks ago.
It is unusual for the United States and other countries to disclose the precise locations of their submarines, but surfacing a stealth boat sends an unmissable military signal to potential adversaries.
Given the sub’s arrival time, it is conceivable that it traveled the same waters used by the Russian Northern Fleet ships.
“The vessel’s location and transit were previously planned,” SOUTHCOM’s statement said.
A U.S. defense official told Newsweek this week that American and Canadian naval and air forces had been “actively monitoring” the Russian ships as they crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
On Wednesday, Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said of the Russian port call in Cuba: “We’ve been tracking the Russians’ plans for this. This is not a surprise.”
“We’re always, constantly going to monitor any foreign vessels operating near U.S. territorial waters,” said Singh. “We of course take it seriously, but these exercises don’t pose a threat to the United States.”
SOUTHCOM did not immediately return a request for comment late on Thursday.
Russian ships visited Cuba every year from 2013-2020. This week’s visit comes after President Vladimir Putin said his forces would take “asymmetrical steps” elsewhere in the world in response to President Joe Biden‘s decision to let Ukraine strike inside Russia using U.S.-supplied weapons.
Biden and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky met on the margins of the G7 summit in Italy on June 13 and signed a 10-year bilateral security agreement.
“We think this is a big deal, a milestone moment in the partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine and a real marker of our commitment not just for this month and this year, but for the many years ahead,” said U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Sullivan said a day earlier: “By signing this, we’ll also be sending Russia a signal of our resolve. If Vladimir Putin thinks that he can outlast the coalition supporting Ukraine, he’s wrong. He just cannot wait us out.”
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