A Russian oil tanker possibly bound for Cuba is highlighting a key U.S. security concern: the communist island’s ties to foreign adversaries who use Cuba to spy on the United States.
In an executive order in January, President Trump declared a national emergency listing several reasons he was acting to choke off Cuba’s oil imports. Near the top was his complaint that the country “blatantly” allows Russia and China to “base sophisticated military and intelligence capabilities” there that threaten U.S. national security.
Specifically, the order noted, Cuba “hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility, which tries to steal sensitive national security information of the United States.”
That is a reference to a Russian facility near Havana, established during the Cold War, that surveilled the United States for decades until it closed almost 25 years ago at a relatively warm moment in U.S.-Russian relations. But as tensions between Washington and Moscow froze over again, in 2014 Russia reopened the site, known as Lourdes.
Former U.S. officials and experts say the base, which bristles with antennae and other eavesdropping equipment, is less sophisticated than China’s installations in Cuba. But it still puts Russian ears roughly 200 miles from the coast of Florida, which is home to several key U.S. military facilities, including Central Command, which oversees the Middle East; the satellite launchpads of Cape Canaveral; and Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and residence at Palm Beach.
“What an unbelievably rich location,” said Glenn S. Gerstell, a former general counsel for the U.S. National Security Agency. “Who would think that sitting in Cuba you might learn about what we’re doing in the Middle East?”
Russia, China and Cuba have all denied the presence of foreign spy bases on the island.
Preserving Lourdes may be one reason President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia might risk angering Mr. Trump by shipping oil to Cuba, whose communist government is struggling to sustain the island’s frail economy after Mr. Trump forced its two main petroleum suppliers, Venezuela and Mexico, to halt their shipments earlier this year.
The Kremlin has been coy in response to questions about whether a Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude oil across the North Atlantic is headed for Cuba. Analysts say that the ship’s cargo, on pace to arrive by the end of the month, could power the island for weeks.
Mr. Trump has spoken of using his economic leverage to mount a “friendly takeover” of Cuba and is pressing for the ouster of its president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. While Trump officials have not said whether they are demanding that the Cuban government expel Russian and Chinese operatives, Mr. Trump’s executive order indicates that the foreign bases are a high priority.
And Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is spearheading Mr. Trump’s Cuba policy, has long called the bases unacceptable. Asked in a 2016 Republican presidential primary debate to describe a “good” U.S. deal with Cuba, Mr. Rubio said it would mean in part that Havana “kicks out the Russians from Lourdes and kicks out the Chinese listening station in Bejucal.”
Bejucal is a hillside town about 20 miles south of Havana, from which satellite dishes can be seen rising from the tropical forest. Aerial photographs published and analyzed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington show a sprawling compound that features large clearings dotted with antennae like candles on a birthday cake, several entrances to underground facilities and a radome, a weatherproof cover that protects sensitive equipment.
One of four suspected Chinese listening posts in Cuba, the Bejucal base was built more than a decade ago but has undergone recent improvements. After disclosures by The Wall Street Journal in 2023, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken confirmed that Beijing had upgraded the site in 2019, adding that the Biden administration had taken a “more direct” diplomatic approach on the matter in response.
There is little evidence that China has backed down, however. At a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing last year, the chairman, Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez of Florida, called the Chinese sites “one of the most brazen intelligence operations ever attempted near the American mainland.”
Mr. Gimenez added that a U.S. military training range in Florida, which he did not name, was “the only training range that actually can simulate battle in the Taiwan Straits” and therefore a prime target of Chinese interest.
Ryan Berg, a co-author of the Center for Strategic and International Studies report, noted at the hearing that China — which is trying to catch up with a U.S. advantage in space rocket technology — would also have a strong interest in tracking satellite launches from Cape Canaveral.
Other U.S. sites probably targeted by the Chinese from Cuba, according to discussions at the hearing, include the headquarters of U.S. Southern Command, which is near Miami and oversees military operations in South America.
This is not the first time Bejucal has been a fixation for U.S. security officials. In October 1962, American spy planes buzzed the area after identifying its underground concrete bunkers as a likely storage site for Soviet nuclear warheads — the trigger for the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But some analysts downplayed the threat of the foreign bases in Cuba, especially Lourdes. One former career U.S. intelligence official said they were not a top priority during his tenure. He also noted that even if Mr. Trump succeeded in forcing the Russian and Chinese bases to shut down, those countries would still operate diplomatic facilities on the island, which would most likely teem with covert eavesdropping equipment.
William LeoGrande, a Latin America specialist at American University who has been critical of Mr. Trump’s confrontational approach to Cuba, said he was skeptical of the foreign intelligence threat from the island. Mr. LeoGrande said he has been told that the Russian base at Lourdes is “obsolete,” and questioned whether China’s outposts were as threatening as advertised. “It’s a predicate for saying Cuba’s a threat,” he said. “It’s a perfect excuse.”
Mr. Gerstell noted that spy equipment does not need to be state of the art to be effective. Even in an age of fiber optics and ultrapowerful satellites, “local antennae are still surprisingly relevant,” he said, adding that they can often pick up signals like walkie-talkie and other radio chatter more clearly than more advanced but more distant methods.
Cuba has benefited financially from hosting China and Russia over the years, which in return have reportedly paid Havana or forgiven its debts to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
The three countries are united by their history of communism, even if Russia has abandoned that Soviet-era political model, and a common rivalry with the United States. After Fidel Castro overthrew his island’s dictatorship in 1959, Moscow became the island’s main patron.
The Lourdes base would become a major irritant for American officials. During a 1983 Oval Office address on the Soviet threat, President Ronald Reagan singled out the base, displaying declassified aerial photos of the facility and calling it “the largest of its kind in the world,” with a contingent of 1,500 Soviet technicians.
After the Cold War’s end, relations between Washington and Moscow warmed, and a cash-strapped Kremlin scaled back its global reach. In October 2001, Mr. Putin announced that Russia would close the Lourdes base.
“This decision is another indication that the Cold War is over,” President George W. Bush said then in a statement. “President Putin understands that Russia and America are no longer adversaries.”
Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state.
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