Putin is about to reactivate a Russian radar reconnaissance center in Cuba.
The radar station is to use the existing infrastructure located just 100 miles off the coast of Florida used by the Russians until Jan. 27, 2002 to intercept the data from the U.S. satellites and U.S. Navy communication systems.
Raul Castro, who in 1993 was Cuban Minister of Defense, said that about 75% of the intelligence gathered by the Russians in overall, was collected by means of Cuban radars.
Nevertheless, at the beginning of the century, the infrastructure, which employed circa 1,000 people, was too expensive to maintain: 580 million USD (20 billion Rubles), including 200 million USD paid just for the presence of the Russians.
The situation and aims of the Russians have changed significantly since then, and according to the Polish defense outlet Dziennik Zbrojny, Putin is planning the reactivation of the Cuban radar installation, most probably to put some more pressure on the U.S. in the region, more than 50 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Havana is going to take advantage of the renewed relationship: according to some media outlets, the Cuban outstanding debt towards Russia has been reduced by 90%, which equals 32 billion USD; the remaining 10% are to be paid by 6-month installments.
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Jacek Siminski for TheAviationist.com
