The decision to send Russian ships to Cuba is giving America a taste of what they do to the rest of the world, international relations and security expert Mark Sleboda told Sputnik’s The Critical Hour on Tuesday.
“I think we can definitely see this as a direct Russian reply to the general US declaration of conducting what it calls ‘Freedom of navigation’ exercises. Although, as far as we know, no one has challenged the freedom of navigation,” Sleboda explained. “They patrol their navy up and down off Russia’s and China’s and Iran’s coast, saber-rattling and threatening as part of their policy of containment.”
The United States has frequently run “military exercises” off the coast of its nominal adversaries, including China, North Korea, Iran and Russia. Earlier this week, NATO kicked off BALTOPS 2024 in the Baltic Sea, the largest exercise in the program’s history.
The Russian trip to Cuba is “a reminder to the US… that two can play this game,” explained Slaboda. “It needs to be said that in [BALTOPS 2024] the US sent B-52 Stratofortress bombers from the United Kingdom. They conducted– according to Russian reports– a simulated nuclear attack on the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.”
Noting that this is not the first time the US simulated nuclear attacks on Russia, they’ve done so in Crimea in the past, Sleboda called BALTOPS 2024 “incredibly provocative and irresponsible and dangerous,” noting that while Russia is sending ships to Cuba, it is not simulating nuclear strikes on US soil.
“We see Russia and NATO on a precipice of direct confrontation between the two sides in Ukraine,” he noted.