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Russia is considering restoring its military bases in Vietnam and Cuba, amid growing tensions with the United States over the raging conflict in Syria.
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Russian Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov stated Friday in a parliamentary meeting that Russia was “rethinking” its decision to close its Cold War-era bases.
"We are dealing with the issue,” Russian media reported Pankov as saying.
The United States has as many as 900 military bases across the globe.
Russia shuttered its intelligence base in Cuba and naval base in Vietnam in the early 2000s.
“The international situation is not static, it is rather versatile. As you see, for the recent two years there have been major corrections to the general international affairs and to the international security regime,” said Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, responding to the speculation.
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Earlier, Aleksey Chepa, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee of the parliament, said that Russia should reassess its international presence.
“I believe that it would correspond with Russian interests to restore the bases in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa that were closed,” said Chepa.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia also plans to develop military bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia.
Up until 2002 Russia operated a intelligence center in Lourdes, Cuba. The facility at one time employed up to 1,500 personnel and was the largest base of its kind operated by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service outside of the Russian Federation.
The Russian Navy was stationed at Cam Rahn in Vietnam, occupying it without paying rent from 1979 to 2004. During the Vietnam War, the Soviet Union provided significant funding to Vietnamese communist forces fighting against the South Vietnam regime propped up by the U.S.
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Since the Soviet era, Russia has enjoyed close military, diplomatic, and cultural ties with socialist Cuba. Even after the collapse of the USSR, the Kremlin continued to nurture close relations with Cuba – including writing off the island’s debt to Russia in 2013, which amounted to US$30 billion. Russia has also continually condemned the ongoing U.S. blockade, which has cost the island US$753.7 billion over the last six decades and US$4.7 billion in the last year.
In December 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the normalization of relations with Cuba after more than 50 years of hostilities. The two countries reopened their respective embassies in July 2015, but the blockade, and other, issues remain.
Russian and U.S. relations have recently been escalating over the conflict in Syria, where both have continually accused each other of thwarting efforts for peace. The bombing of an aid convoy on Sept. 19 signaled the end of the cease-fire deal and on Monday the U.S. State Department said it had “suspended” bilateral contact with Russia over Syria.
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