16 September 2024
The Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, has said that Moscow will introduce measures that it expects to help Cuba address the economic consequences of the US embargo.
Speaking in St Petersburg following a working meeting with Cuba’s Interior Minister, General Lazaro Alvarez, Shoigu said that Russia will provide additional economic support as well as developing the broadest strategic partnership in multiple areas.
“We are ready to increase cooperation between security councils, special services (intelligence agencies) and law enforcement agencies. We will pay special attention to trade, economic and investment cooperation, including within the framework of the relevant bilateral inter-governmental commission. We expect that Havana, including with our help, will overcome the severe crisis consequences of the American economic blockade. Russia will take additional measures to support Havana, in particular by providing new credit lines,” Shoigu said, according to the Russian official TASS news agency.
Shoigu, who was until recently Russia’s Defence Minister and previously visited Cuba in that capacity, was also quoted as observing during a bilateral working meeting with Alvarez that “Cuba is one of Russia’s closest allies in Latin America. We have long-standing, strong, time-tested relations – dating back to the days of the Soviet Union.”
Cuba’s Interior Minister was in Russia to attend high-level meetings on security issues with BRICS plus countries and full members of the BRICS grouping
In his opening remarks to all participants, Shoigu characterised the global system as now being “based on rules that are arbitrarily established and changed in the interests of a narrow group of states.” He said that the St Petersburg meeting would offer “answers to the challenges we face, based on mutual respect and a healthy balance of interests.”
Observing that the voices of nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, “are becoming increasingly louder on the world stage,” and that they are pursuing independent foreign policies, and finding “their rightful place in the system of international relations,” he highlighted the fact that several interstate groupings, including the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), are now “promoting a constructive agenda.”
Highlights in this issue:
- Tabacuba says all is ready to begin 2024-25 tobacco campaign
- Government announces reduction in size of bread in subsidised family basket
- Sugar factory repair said to be the decisive step to improve next sugar harvest
- Canadian travel advisory warns about Oropouche virus
- US Study Group forecasts tightening of regulations on Cuban MSMEs will hinder growth
The St Petersburg meeting was attended by 21 countries with full BRICS members Russia, China, India, Brazil, Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and South Africa meeting first to discuss what was described as combating the terrorist threat, and security in the information and communication space.
The second part saw nineteen BRICS plus nations discuss international security cooperation. The expanded BRICS plus group present consisted of Cuba, Serbia, Belarus, Turkey, Iran, Mauritania, Laos, Vietnam, Venezuela, Bahrain, South Africa, Brazil, Nicaragua, the UAE, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Egypt and India.
Prior to both meetings Granma reported that in Russia a Cuban delegation of senior security officials would “analyse relevant issues for national, regional and international security, as well as the most promising guidelines for cooperation in this area.”
In a separate indication of the deepening economic relationship between Russia and Cuba, Russian Railways (RZD) confirmed during the 3-6 September Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok details of the multi-million Ruble contract that it expects to conclude soon with Cuba. This will see it modernise and upgrade Cuba’s strategically important but aging railway network using Russian government credits. Full details will appear in the next issue of Cuba Briefing. At the same meeting Russia’s Minister of Transport, Roman Starovoit, confirmed to participants reports that Russian airlines are exploring the expansion of commercial flights to the Island.
Background to the long running discussions on upgrading Cuba’s railways network and related but now largely resolved financing issues can be found in Cuba Briefing 2 April 2024. An outline of the project was first detailed in Cuba Briefing 3 March 2017.
16 September 2024, Issue 1247
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