Russia’s warships in Cuba are more than a tit-for-tat for Biden’s support for Ukraine

Andres Oppenheimer

The arrival of four Russian warships, including a nuclear submarine, in Cuba on June 12 got world attention because it was seen as a defiant response by Russian leader Vladimir Putin to America’s military aid to Ukraine.

But there may be much more to it than that.

While Putin probably tried to send the message to Washington that “if you step into my backyard, I’ll step into yours,” he may also have sent the warships as a show of support for Cuba’s dictatorship at a time of growing street protests amid the island’s worst economic crisis in recent memory.

There have been protests over food and electricity shortages in Santiago and other Cuban cities in recent months. In March, for the first time since the 1959 Cuban revolution, Cuba admitted it had requested food from the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP,) and that it received a shipment of powdered milk for children .

Curious about the severity of Cuba’s economic crisis, I called Carmelo Mesa Lago, a former University of Pittsburgh professor best known as “the dean of Cuban economists.” When I asked him how bad things are on the island, he summed it up in three words: “worst than ever.”

Mesa Lago, who will turn 90 in August, maintains regular contact with Cuban economists on the island. Reached at his home in Pittsburgh, he told me that “Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution.”

Cuba’s economy over the past five years has shrunk by an average of 2% a year, and the island’s production of manufacturing goods has fallen to half of what it was in 1989, he told me. Cuba’s overall exports have fallen by a whopping 61% since 2013, he said.

In addition, despite Cuba’s official inflation estimate of 39% a year in 2022 — the last year for which official figures are available — the island’s real inflation rate is closer to 1,000% a year, Mesa Lago estimates.

The main reason behind Cuba’s economic debacle is that, unlike other communist-ruled countries like China and Vietnam that follow the “socialist market” model, a code work for a hybrid economy, the Cuban regime has not allowed a sizable private sector.

Cuba has to import sugar, poultry and several other foodstuffs because private farmers have no incentive to produce, Mesa Lago said.

“China and Vietnam have allowed agricultural producers to sow whatever they like, to sell to whoever they want and at the prices set by supply and demand,” Mesa Lago said. “In Cuba, farmers have to sell up to 70% of their crops to the state, and their products’ prices are set by the state below the market price.”

Another reason Cuba’s economy is crumbling is that the island can no longer count on foreign benefactors such as the former Soviet Union in the 1980s and Venezuela until recently. Venezuela used to send 105,000 barrels a day of subsidized oil to Cuba in 2015, but that figure has plummeted to about 57,000 barrels a day today, he said.

Mesa Lago said the U.S. embargo, which he has opposed over the years, is far from a major reason behind Cuba’s economic catastrophe. Asked about the Biden administration’s recent decision to allow Cuban private sector firms to use U.S. banks, Mesa Lago said “it’s a positive measure,” but won’t have much of an impact because the number of private firms allowed on the island is relatively small.

“If Cuba doesn’t make fundamental economic changes, there’s no way they can get out of the hole,” he told me. “Things are likely to get even worse.”

Only days before the Russian warships arrived in Havana, the Cuban regime announced that it will give extraordinary powers to its armed forces to declare militarized areas and create civilian groups armed with rifles to protect “urban and rural areas of security interest.”

According to the Madrid-based Cuban opposition website Cubasiglo21.com, “Cuba’s oligarchy knows that this year, especially over the summer, it can face major social explosions. Thus, it is militarizing Cuba’s institutions.”

Indeed, Cuban dictator Miguel Diaz-Canel may be fearing a repetition of the massive 2021 anti-government protests over food shortages, in which more than 700 peaceful demonstrators were sentenced to long prison sentences of up to 25 years.

So yes, the Russian warships may be Putin’s message to Washington to stop helping Ukraine defend itself, but it is probably also a Russian show of support for Cuba’s beleaguered dictatorship. Putin and Diaz-Canel know that this may be a politically hot summer on Cuba’s streets.