The Royal Canadian Navy now finds itself in the unusual position of both shadowing Russian warships as a threat in the Caribbean and sharing an anchorage with them as a guest in the port of Havana — because Canada accepted an invitation to send a patrol ship to Cuba while the Russian navy is in town.

And it’s not clear just who in government or the military knew about the invitation from Cuba. The Caribbean nation has been a full-throated supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and Cubans have been fighting alongside Russian soldiers in that country.

A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence (DND) told CBC News on Friday that the department was aware the Russians would be in Havana port on the same days as the Canadians.

But when asked about the visit on CBC’s Power and Politics on Thursday evening, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told host David Cochrane she knew nothing about it.

  • cygnus@lemmy.caEnglish
    191·
    5 months ago

    I didn’t know Cuba was actively supporting Russia.

    Cuba has been staunchly aligned with Russia for like 70 years. That was the major reason for the US embargo in the first place.

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      85·
      5 months ago

      Yeah, but before 2014 that wasn’t a good reason to embargo them.

      • credo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        25·
        5 months ago

        Really?

        Cuba has long had good relations with Russia. It was a key ally to the former Soviet Union during the Cold War that briefly hosted nuclear missiles at Moscow’s behest during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

        https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/12/americas/russian-navy-cuba-intl/index.html

        Also…

        Again on October 19, 1960, almost two years after the Cuban Revolution had led to the deposition of the Batista regime, the U.S. placed an embargo on exports to Cuba except for food and medicine after Cuba nationalized the US-owned Cuban oil refineries without compensation. On February 7, 1962, the embargo was extended to include almost all exports.

        I would argue the original reasoning was very valid. Helps to know the history though, I guess.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          23·
          5 months ago

          Embargoing countries because they’re aggressors in war of territorial expansion is valid.

          Embargoing countries just because they’re communist is not valid.

          Let me know if there’s something you still fail to understand about it.

          • credo@lemmy.worldEnglish
            22·
            5 months ago

            I already provided the reasoning. Where does it say, “because they’re communist”?

            (Let me know if you have a processing deficiency)