Russia’s Putin Flip Flops on Cuba

Russia Says Time To Rebuild Links With Former Cold War Ally Cuba

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday said it was time for Russia to rebuild links with former Cold War ally Cuba, news agencies reported. A week ago the Kremlin was busy quashing a Russian news service report it was about to station bombers on Cuban soil. Now Putin says he might just use Cuban to refuel nuclear capable bombers this would reverse Russia’s post Soviet policy not to establish military bases on foreign soil.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin just returned from a recent three-day visit to Cuba, where he discussed a raft of trade and investment issues and met with Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother and now the island’s leader.

Some say Russia is positioning to confront the U. S. if Obama is elected U. S. President, believing they can force him to abandon U. S. anti-missile missiles and defense radar systems in Poland and Eastern Europe - and even Israel.

At the height of the Cold War in 1962, a two-week crisis over Soviet missiles on the island nearly led to full-blown war until JFK agreed to remove IMBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile) from Turkey for the USSRs removal of its IMBM from Cuba.

The average Cuban’s standard of living remains at a lower level than before the downturn of the 1990s, which was caused by the loss of Soviet aid and its own domestic inefficiencies. Per capita income remains at $4,500 a year (compared with $13,500 in Costa Rica; $9,200 in Dominican Republic; $7,200 in Equador; $5,200 in El Salvador, and $1,900 in Haiti which is the regions poorest).ranking 88 of 179 nations. Venezuela has been providing oil on preferential terms since 2007, and it currently supplies about 100,000 barrels per day of petroleum products. Cuba has been paying for that oil, in part, with the services of Cuban personnel in Venezuela, including some 20,000 medical professionals.

Cuba still suffers from periodic power blackouts concentrated away from tourist center. Private citizens are prohibited from buying computers or accessing the Internet without special authorization; foreigners may access the Internet in large hotels but are subject to firewalls.

According to the United Nations Cuba is principally a source country for women and children trafficked within the country for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and possibly for forced labor; the country is a destination for European, Mideast, and Asian sex tourism, including child sex tourism, which is a problem in many areas of the country. Cuba is also a transit point for the smuggling of migrants from China, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Lebanon, and other nations to the United States and Canada.

Even though there is a 1999 death penalty for drug trafficking its territorial waters and air space serve as transshipment zone for US- and European-bound drug- much of it government approved.