Moscow, July 21 (RIA Novosti) Russian combat aircraft could be stationed in Cuba in a bid to counter US plans to deploy a missile shield in central Europe, a Russian daily reported Monday. Moscow has strongly opposed the planned deployment by the US of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic as a threat to its security. 'While they are deploying the missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, our strategic bombers will be landing in Cuba,' a high-placed military aviation source told the Izvestia newspaper.
That'll make the U.S. Air Force very, very happy. They haven't had live targets to practice on in a while. And just before budget submission time as well.
Meanwhile, Leonid Ivashov, the former head of the Russia's defence ministry's department for international cooperation, told the newspaper that Cuba could be used as a refueling stopover for Russian aircraft rather than a permanent base.
On the way south to visit your friend Hugo, perhaps?
The October of 1962 saw a tense standoff between the US and the erstwhile Soviet Union after the latter stationed its missile in Cuba. The Cuban missile crisis was resolved after the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered the removal of the missiles. |