ID :
13674
Thu, 07/24/2008 - 13:08
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/13674
The shortlink copeid
Russian mass media, experts speculating about strategic jets in Cuba By Lyudmila Alexandrova
MOSCOW, July 24 (Itar-Tass) - Russian mass media rumors that Moscow may use Cuban airbases in retaliation to the U.S. moves to deploy elements of the national antiballistic missile system in the Czech Republic and Poland have produced a sharp reaction in Washington - not at the official level so far, though.
Russian media surmise the deployment of strategic warplanes in Cuba might be a part of the asymmetric response that Moscow has threatened with, and they recall in this connection the Caribbean Missile Crisis of 1962, when the dispatching of medium-range missiles to Cuba by the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev drove the two superpowers nearly to the verge of a nuclear war.
In the meantime, Russia urges the U.S. to introduce clarity in thesituation around the antiballistic missiles system.
A report that the Kremlin is considering a possibility of strategic aviation flights to Cuba as a counterweight to U.S. ABM plans for Eastern Europe appeared in the well-connected Izvestia daily earlier this week.
"While they /the Americans/ are deploying their ABM elements in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic jets are already landing in Cuba," a high-rank source told the newspaper, whose correspondents decided to verify the information.
"In theory, our long-range strategic jets can get to any corner of the globe," Izvestia wrote. "The supersonic missile carrier Tupolev-160 (Russian Air Force pilots call it the White Swan) and the strategic bomber Tupolev-95MS (nicknamed the Bear in NATO) have the performance characteristics allowing them to reach Cuba, but performances are not enough as such, since flights of the kind require political decisions." "Talk about it is in the air, but this is mere talking and nothingmore, although I wouldn't rush to claim it's totally devoid of substance," a well-informed source at the Long-Range Strategic Aviation Staff told Izvestia.
Crews of Russian long-range airlift forces do make flights to Cuba, though - on business contracts issued by private companies.
U.S. radars would certainly register the landings of the White Swans and Bears in Cuba, should they have really landed there, Izvestia said adding that the space between Cuba and the U.S. is a mere 90 miles. All the more so that the U.S. has its own eyes and ears right inside Cuba - on the infamous Guantanamo base.
Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, who formerly stood at the head of the external defense cooperation department at the Russian Ministry of Defense told Izvestia Cuba does not need Russian jets as a force permanently based there but local airdromes could well be used for refueling purposes.
A possibility of Russian long-range strategic aviation flights to Cuba might be a good response to the U.S. plans for placing its antiballistic missile bases near Russian borders, Army General Pyotr Deinekin, the former Chief Commander of the Air Force was quoted by the NEWSru.com portal as saying.
"If they really begin to work on plans for this, it'll be a great step to retaliate NATO's attempts to deploy bases near Russia's borders," Gen Deinekin said. "There are no doubts from the viewpoint of implementation of those plans that the jets and crews of our long-range aviation are cable of flying to Cuba and getting deployed there." He also said he does not see anything objectionable in this, since Western partners do not count with Russia's interests when they deploytheir own airbases and radar posts on the territories adjoining Russia.
Former President Vladimir Putin said August 17, 2007, that Russia was resuming regular flights of strategic aviation in remote regions where the strategic jets had not appeared since 1992.
He described their missions as strategic patrolling in the areas of shipping operations and economic activity of Russian companies.
Reaction from Washington to Izvestia's report came briskly, although nothing has been said on the issue at the official level so far. Radio Liberty quoted General Norton Schwartz, a high-rank military, as saying in Congress such Russian flights would be above the limits of the admissible for the U.S.
The U.S. Department of State cannot comment right now on a possibity of Russian strategic bombers flights to Cuba, as it must clear out the position of the U.S. Administration on the issue first, acting official spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said Monday.
He added that he personally heard about such plans for the first time.
Gallegos reiterated along with it that the U.S. does not see any dangers for Russia that might be posed by the deployment of the thirdoperating area of the antiballistic missile defenses in Europe.
On the face of it, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained Wednesday after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Singapore that Moscow has not received any concrete proposals on the ABM from Washington.
"We especially stressed the importance of getting clarifications at last on the situation around ABM defenses, since our U.S, counterparts' promises for transparency and trust-building measures haven't materialized in anything tangible so far," Lavrov said.
He indicated that Rice had promised speeding up the drafting ofAmerican proposals in that area.
Meanwhile, Russian mass media have made rather skeptical comments on the problem. Point.ru Internet magazine recalls that "once upon a time the USSR did take a decision to spell fright on America with the aid of nuclear missiles, which it placed in Cuba - literally in Uncle Sam's backyard." Now the Americans "push their AMB systems almost to Russia's frontier zone," Point.ru says. "The plans for the European segment of the system are being actively discussed with regard to the Czech Republic and Poland and, possibly, Lithuania." Top-rank Russians government officials and military have more than once made irritated statements that an asymmetric response is in theoffing.
"Its contents are unclear and the Izvestia article leads up to a conclusion a decision of some kind along the lines of an asymmetricresponse may be budding, indeed - in the spirit of good old Soviet times," Point.ru says.
It makes a reference to the Caribbean Missile Crisis "when the U.S. and the USSR braced each other with hundreds of nuclear warheads after the U.S. military intelligence had tracked down Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba." "What is that provocative raving all about?" the Yezhednevny Zhurnal publication asks somewhat rhetorically. "It looks like we are trying to scare the Americans this way. Our Foreign Ministry did say, after all, that our reaction to the deployment of ABM elements in Europe would lie in the field of defense technologies."As it recalls Khrushchev's decision to dispatch missiles to Cuba in 1962, Yezhednevny Zhurnal says it was also described as a response then - to the deployment of U.S. missiles in Turkey.
Russian media surmise the deployment of strategic warplanes in Cuba might be a part of the asymmetric response that Moscow has threatened with, and they recall in this connection the Caribbean Missile Crisis of 1962, when the dispatching of medium-range missiles to Cuba by the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev drove the two superpowers nearly to the verge of a nuclear war.
In the meantime, Russia urges the U.S. to introduce clarity in thesituation around the antiballistic missiles system.
A report that the Kremlin is considering a possibility of strategic aviation flights to Cuba as a counterweight to U.S. ABM plans for Eastern Europe appeared in the well-connected Izvestia daily earlier this week.
"While they /the Americans/ are deploying their ABM elements in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic jets are already landing in Cuba," a high-rank source told the newspaper, whose correspondents decided to verify the information.
"In theory, our long-range strategic jets can get to any corner of the globe," Izvestia wrote. "The supersonic missile carrier Tupolev-160 (Russian Air Force pilots call it the White Swan) and the strategic bomber Tupolev-95MS (nicknamed the Bear in NATO) have the performance characteristics allowing them to reach Cuba, but performances are not enough as such, since flights of the kind require political decisions." "Talk about it is in the air, but this is mere talking and nothingmore, although I wouldn't rush to claim it's totally devoid of substance," a well-informed source at the Long-Range Strategic Aviation Staff told Izvestia.
Crews of Russian long-range airlift forces do make flights to Cuba, though - on business contracts issued by private companies.
U.S. radars would certainly register the landings of the White Swans and Bears in Cuba, should they have really landed there, Izvestia said adding that the space between Cuba and the U.S. is a mere 90 miles. All the more so that the U.S. has its own eyes and ears right inside Cuba - on the infamous Guantanamo base.
Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, who formerly stood at the head of the external defense cooperation department at the Russian Ministry of Defense told Izvestia Cuba does not need Russian jets as a force permanently based there but local airdromes could well be used for refueling purposes.
A possibility of Russian long-range strategic aviation flights to Cuba might be a good response to the U.S. plans for placing its antiballistic missile bases near Russian borders, Army General Pyotr Deinekin, the former Chief Commander of the Air Force was quoted by the NEWSru.com portal as saying.
"If they really begin to work on plans for this, it'll be a great step to retaliate NATO's attempts to deploy bases near Russia's borders," Gen Deinekin said. "There are no doubts from the viewpoint of implementation of those plans that the jets and crews of our long-range aviation are cable of flying to Cuba and getting deployed there." He also said he does not see anything objectionable in this, since Western partners do not count with Russia's interests when they deploytheir own airbases and radar posts on the territories adjoining Russia.
Former President Vladimir Putin said August 17, 2007, that Russia was resuming regular flights of strategic aviation in remote regions where the strategic jets had not appeared since 1992.
He described their missions as strategic patrolling in the areas of shipping operations and economic activity of Russian companies.
Reaction from Washington to Izvestia's report came briskly, although nothing has been said on the issue at the official level so far. Radio Liberty quoted General Norton Schwartz, a high-rank military, as saying in Congress such Russian flights would be above the limits of the admissible for the U.S.
The U.S. Department of State cannot comment right now on a possibity of Russian strategic bombers flights to Cuba, as it must clear out the position of the U.S. Administration on the issue first, acting official spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said Monday.
He added that he personally heard about such plans for the first time.
Gallegos reiterated along with it that the U.S. does not see any dangers for Russia that might be posed by the deployment of the thirdoperating area of the antiballistic missile defenses in Europe.
On the face of it, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained Wednesday after a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Singapore that Moscow has not received any concrete proposals on the ABM from Washington.
"We especially stressed the importance of getting clarifications at last on the situation around ABM defenses, since our U.S, counterparts' promises for transparency and trust-building measures haven't materialized in anything tangible so far," Lavrov said.
He indicated that Rice had promised speeding up the drafting ofAmerican proposals in that area.
Meanwhile, Russian mass media have made rather skeptical comments on the problem. Point.ru Internet magazine recalls that "once upon a time the USSR did take a decision to spell fright on America with the aid of nuclear missiles, which it placed in Cuba - literally in Uncle Sam's backyard." Now the Americans "push their AMB systems almost to Russia's frontier zone," Point.ru says. "The plans for the European segment of the system are being actively discussed with regard to the Czech Republic and Poland and, possibly, Lithuania." Top-rank Russians government officials and military have more than once made irritated statements that an asymmetric response is in theoffing.
"Its contents are unclear and the Izvestia article leads up to a conclusion a decision of some kind along the lines of an asymmetricresponse may be budding, indeed - in the spirit of good old Soviet times," Point.ru says.
It makes a reference to the Caribbean Missile Crisis "when the U.S. and the USSR braced each other with hundreds of nuclear warheads after the U.S. military intelligence had tracked down Soviet medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba." "What is that provocative raving all about?" the Yezhednevny Zhurnal publication asks somewhat rhetorically. "It looks like we are trying to scare the Americans this way. Our Foreign Ministry did say, after all, that our reaction to the deployment of ABM elements in Europe would lie in the field of defense technologies."As it recalls Khrushchev's decision to dispatch missiles to Cuba in 1962, Yezhednevny Zhurnal says it was also described as a response then - to the deployment of U.S. missiles in Turkey.
