Growing Concerns As Russians Make Big Return To Cuba 1

Headquarters of Cuba’s dreaded Ministry of the Interior (MININT) [Photo — Havana Times

BY HANK TESTER, CBS Miami

MIAMI – “The Cuban government is desperate, they have no money, no gas, they have no food.”

That said by Otto Reich, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela and President of The Center for a Free Cuba.

Reich reacting to news that Russia and Cuba are renewing their relationship that all but disappeared after the Soviet Union dissolved in the late 1980’s.

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet Union was a big Cuba player, propping up the Castro Governments Communist based economy.

The Russians bailed when the Soviet Union fell apart.

Now, they say they are back with big promises and the Cuban’s are sweeting the pie.

Russia is offering Cuba great deals on gasoline, emergency donations of wheat, promises to build hotels, increase Russian tourism flows, and open retail stores stocked with Russian household products.

In return, Cuba will grant Russian entrepreneurs long term property leases.

Russian banks can open up, duty-free import of Russian equipment.

Russian business would be able to take profits out of the country.

“There is the promise to open a Russian vehicle assembly plant,” Reich is quick to mention.

“I am told they are sending personal to revamp the spy station,” he said.

The Russian operated an ease dropping spy station for years, then phased out their facility, but now may bring it back.

Cuba watchers say we should get ready for more Russian Naval Ships docking in the Port of Havana. With Russian long range bombers flying down the East Coast of the United States, landing in Cuba.

Russian Spy ships lingering just off the Atlantic territorial waters of the United States of America.

“They, the Russians, have always seen Cuba as a permeant aircraft carrier off the coast of the United States.”

Feature continues here: Russia’s Return to Cuba

China Has Had A Spy Base in Cuba For Decades, Former Intelligence Officer Says 1

Nora Gamez Torres, Miami Herald

China’s espionage efforts in Cuba targeting the United States are not recent and date back at least three decades, a retired army counterintelligence agent has told the Miami Herald. It took U.S. intelligence agencies nine years to figure out who was behind the repair and enhancements spotted during the 1990s at a “signals intelligence facility” — a reference to the interception of electronic communications — in the town of Bejucal, a 45-minute drive from Havana. “We saw the enhancements over a decade, a steady evolution; clearly something was going on, but we didn’t know what,” said Chris Simmons, a former chief of a counterintelligence research branch on the Western Hemisphere at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, which had Cuba as its number one target. “And then, in 2001, we discovered that the Chinese had been there already for nine years. We were told at that time that when the Chinese arrived in 1992, they were embedded in a single building within Bejucal, and they were 50 officers in this facility.”

The revelations of the long-term foothold of Chinese spy agencies in Cuba come after new intelligence reported by the Wall Street Journal suggested Cuban and Chinese officials were discussing building a spy base and a military training facility on the island and paying billions of dollars to Cuba in exchange. White House and Pentagon officials first said the initial report had “inaccuracies” without further elaboration. But later, Biden administration officials confirmed that China had intelligence-collection facilities in Cuba since at least 2019, when they were upgraded. The revelations come amid efforts by the Biden administration to improve communications with Beijing. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will visit China on Tuesday following a trip by the Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month, in which he said he raised the issue of the Chinese base in Cuba with senior Chinese officials. Following the first media reports about a spy base, members of Congress expressed concern for what seemed like a recent effort by China to establish intelligence facilities in Cuba.

“It comes as no surprise to us that the Cuban regime — which has historically opened its doors to foreign adversaries of the United States — and the [People’s Republic of China] are working together to undermine U.S. national security. However, the establishment of intelligence facilities and expansion of military ties this close to U.S. territory is a significant, escalatory step,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairmen of the Senate and the House committees handling foreign affairs, wrote last week in a letter requesting an intelligence briefing on the matter. But as it turns out, Chinese spies have been in Cuba longer than previously disclosed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, China quickly moved to secure a position in Cuba, just 90 miles off the Florida Keys, though, at the time, the Asian country was not perceived as a U.S. adversary, but just as a regional power, Simmons said. “Washington knew the Chinese were engaged,” Simmons said. “But the conventional wisdom was that China just seized the political opportunity because of the collapse of the Soviet Union. That was the simplified D.C. logic. We could see the ships going in and the weapons coming off. But for the most part, Washington didn’t want to ask the hard questions.”

Feature Continues Here: China-Cuba SIGINT Cooperation