Difficult times bring Russia and Cuba closer together

For the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia is taking an intense interest in Cuba as Moscow has become increasingly isolated over its invasion of Ukraine

Top Russian officials have flocked to the island nation this year, starting in March with Nikolai Patrushev, Moscow’s secretary of the Security Council, alongside the executive director of state oil company Rosneft, Igor Sechin

A representative of Russian business owners, Boris Titov, also visited

The most high-profile visit was from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in April on a week-long trip to Latin American allies, including Venezuela and Nicaragua, which like Cuba and Russia are the subject of Western sanctions

“Russia needs trading partners and political allies, with Latin America offering the possibility of both,” Mervyn Bain, from Aberdeen University in Scotland, told AFP

Last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko drew up a road map to accelerate cooperation with Cuba, which is mired in its worst economic crisis in three decades, with chronic shortages of food, fuel and medicines

The two countries have signed around a dozen agreements to relaunch trade relations in construction, information technology, banking, sugar, transport and tourism

“But to what level” this cooperation can go “is unclear,” said Bain, an expert in Russia’s relationships with Latin America

Chernyshenko’s plan also referenced Cuba’s need to change certain laws to loosen restrictions on private enterprise

Communist Cuba had already been forced to open up its centralized economy to small and medium-sized private businesses due to its increasing economic woes

Cuba has announced the reopening of direct flights between Moscow and the seaside resort of Varadero, and Russian tourists have been able to use the Russian Mir payment system in the country since March

Unconditional support

The Russian visits to the Caribbean island nation have come only months after Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visited his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow

The two communist entities were close allies during the Cold War, but that cooperation was abruptly halted in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc

Until then, 75 per cent of Cuba’s commercial exchanges were with its communist ally

Having almost ended completely, relations started picking up again from 2005, with the current levels of exchange the highest since then