Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov says there are ‘similarities’ to the Cuban disaster, primarily as a result of Russia is now threatened by Western weapons in Ukraine.
Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov mentioned he hopes US President Joe Biden has the knowledge to cope with a world confrontation just like the 1962 Cuban missile disaster, referencing the struggle on Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most important hostilities between Moscow and the West because the Cuban disaster, when the Soviet Union and United States got here near a nuclear struggle.
On the time, US President John F Kennedy found that Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev had deployed nuclear missiles on Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion – a US-backed coup try by Cuban exiles to overthrow the communist management.
In October 1962, a Soviet submarine captain wished to launch a nuclear weapon after the US Navy dropped depth expenses across the submarine. Later that day, Kennedy secretly agreed to take away all US missiles from Turkey in trade for Khrushchev eradicating the identical from Cuba.
The disaster was defused, although it turned an emblem of the perils of superpower rivalry within the Chilly Battle.
In an interview for a Russian state tv documentary on the missile disaster, Lavrov mentioned there have been “similarities” to the Cuban disaster, primarily as a result of Russia was now threatened by Western weapons in Ukraine.
“I hope that in in the present day’s state of affairs, President Joe Biden can have extra alternatives to know who provides orders and the way,” Lavrov mentioned.
“This example could be very disturbing. The distinction is that within the distant 1962, Khrushchev and Kennedy discovered the energy to point out accountability and knowledge, and now we don’t see such readiness on the a part of Washington and its satellites.”
‘Able to hear’
A spokesperson for the White Home Nationwide Safety Council declined to touch upon Lavrov’s statements however pointed to previous feedback about maintaining strains of communication open with Moscow.
Lavrov mentioned the Russian management, together with President Vladimir Putin, continues to be ready for discussions on Ukraine.
“The readiness of Russia, together with its president, to barter [on Ukraine], it stays unchanged,” he mentioned. “We’ll at all times be able to take heed to what proposals our Western companions must de-escalate tensions.”
Putin cites the West’s dismissal of Russian issues concerning the safety of post-Soviet Europe, and particularly the enlargement of the NATO army alliance eastwards, as one of many predominant causes of the battle.
The US and its European allies say Russian issues are overblown and can’t justify the invasion of a former Soviet neighbour whose borders Moscow recognised after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.