Nachrichten auf Russischer Kraft gegen Vereinigten Staaten

Neues Kaltkrieg?
Neues Weltkrieg bei August 1914*
March 15, 2009
Associated Press

MOSCOW - A Russian air force general said that the country could base some strategic bombers in Cuba or on an island offered by Venezuela, news agencies reported, but a Kremlin official quickly said the military had been speaking only hypothetically.

The U.S. and Russia have been trying to reset their relationship, severely strained over U.S. plans to position missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic and by Russia's invasion of U.S. ally Georgia last year.

Russia has nothing to gain strategically from basing long-range bombers within relatively short range of U.S. shores, independent military analyst Alexander Golts said, calling the military statement a retaliatory gesture aimed at hitting back after U.S. ships patrolled Black Sea waters near Georgia.

The chief of staff of Russia's long range aviation, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev, was quoted by Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies as saying Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had offered Russia to use an airbase on La Orchila island.

"Chavez has offered us a whole island with an airfield, which we can use as a temporary base for strategic bombers," Zhikharev was quoted as saying. "If there is a corresponding political decision, then the use of the island ... by the Russian Air Force is possible."

Interfax also quoted Zhikharev as saying that Cuba has four or five air bases with runways long enough to host the Russian long-range planes.

"This is possible with Cuba," it quoted Zhikharev as saying. "If the two heads of state display such a political will, we are ready to fly there."

But Kremlin spokesman Alexei Pavlov told The Associated Press that "the military is speaking about technical possibilities, that's all. If there will be a development of the situation, then we can comment."

Mike Hammer, spokesman for President Barack Obama's National Security Council, said, "We do not comment on hypotheticals."

Officials at both Venezuela's presidential administration and Defense Ministry refused immediate comment and Cuban officials could not be reached for comment.

But Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech Sept. 7, "All these long-range planes and boats must have a place to stop. Where are they going to stop? Are they going to stop in territory belonging to countries that don't like them? No. They'll look for their strategic allies."

"Russia will be welcome - the air fleet or the naval fleet," Chavez said. "We're Russia's strategic ally."

Venezuela and Cuba, traditionally fierce U.S. foes, have close political and energy relations with Russia, which has been working to reassert itself as a military force. Russia resumed regular long-range bomber patrols in 2007 after a 15-year hiatus.

Venezuela hosted two Russian Tu-160 bombers in September for training flights and later joined Russian warships for exercises in the Caribbean.

The bombers visit marked the first time Russian strategic bombers landed in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War times, when the Soviet aircraft sometimes made stopovers in Cuba.

In the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba pushed the world to the brink of nuclear conflict after U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced their presence to the world. After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev removed the missiles.

The military analyst Golts said basing Russian bombers in Venezuela or Cuba "has no military sense. The bombers don't need any base."

He said the bombers are considered strategic because they are capable of reaching an attacking range of the United States from Russia without the need for stopovers.

Moscow and the new Obama administration have appeared to want to mend their relations,

U.S. plans initiated under former President George W. Bush to put elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic had particularly irked Russia, although the United States insists they are intended to counter potential future threats from Iran.

Russia has welcomed Obama's apparently more cautious approach to the divisive issue.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva earlier this month to push a symbolic red "reset" button, another sign of the desire for a clean slate.

Cuban authorities made no comment last summer when a Moscow newspaper reported that Russia could send nuclear bombers to the island. While neither confirming nor denying the report, ailing former President Fidel Castro at the time praised his brother President Raul Castro for maintaining a "dignified silence" on the report and said that Cuba was not obligated to offer the United States an explanation.


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*August 1914 bei Alexander Solzhenytsyn