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Russian navy: Russian warships to visit Cuba

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-15 19:39

MOSCOW -- The Russian navy says its warships will visit Cuba for the first time since the Soviet era.

A Russian Navy sailor stands on deck at the Russian warship Admiral Chabanenko in Panama City, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2008. Panama says its canal is open to all as a Russian warship sails through the transoceanic waterway to dock at a former US base. The Russian navy says its warships will visit Cuba for the first time since the Soviet era. [Agencies]

The navy says a squadron that has been on a lengthy visit to Latin America will put in at Havana on Friday for a five-day stay.

Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo says it will be the first visit by Russian warships to the island just 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the United States since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

The nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great and the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko arrived in the Caribbean last month in a deployment also unprecedented since Soviet times. The voyage is widely seen as a response to the United States' use of warships to deliver aid to Russia's neighbor Georgia after their war in August.