The Russian Defense Ministry dismissed a report in the newspaper Izvestia in July that quoted an unidentified Russian official as saying the government intended to begin basing Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack and Tupolev Tu-95 Bear nuclear bombers in Cuba.
However, the report was taken seriously enough in Washington that Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, the new Air Force chief of staff, said during his Senate confirmation hearing at the time that sending the bombers would cross a "red line in the sand."
Last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice complained about Russia's increasing reliance on its military to remind the world of its power. She criticized Russia's military advance into Georgia, a former Soviet republic, and its increasingly frequent patrols by long-range nuclear bombers in U.S.- and NATO-patrolled ocean lanes near northern Europe, Alaska and elsewhere.
As it rebuilds forces that withered during the impoverished 1990s, Russia also has been looking for new air and naval bases far from home. It is negotiating with Syria to resume use of naval bases in Tartus and Latakia, Russian officials have said. There has also been talk in Moscow of approaching Vietnam about using Cam Ranh Bay.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in late July sent one of his closest aides, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, and a large delegation to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro. The meeting was primarily about economic cooperation, including possible oil exploration off Cuba. But Russian officials made it clear that they were exploring resumption of other aspects of the relationship as well.
Nikolai Patrushev, who is secretary of the Russian Security Council and former director of the FSB, the domestic successor agency to the KGB, met with the Cuban defense and interior ministers on the trip. Afterward, the council issued a statement saying that the two countries planned "consistent work to restore traditional relations in all areas of cooperation."
Afterward, Putin said, "We need to reestablish positions in Cuba and in other countries."
Some Russian analysts remain skeptical of the Kremlin's intentions, seeing the whispers of renewed military activity in Cuba as a tactic meant to rattle the United States.
Russian officials "understand that the restoration of even an intelligence-gathering base in Lourdes would be a declaration of a new Cold War on the part of Russia," said Alexander Golts, defense analyst with the online publication Yezhednevny Zhurnal. "The Kremlin will never do it, because they cannot afford it."
