The Royal Canadian Navy now finds itself in the unusual position of both shadowing Russian warships as a threat in the Caribbean and sharing an anchorage with them as a guest in the port of Havana — because Canada accepted an invitation to send a patrol ship to Cuba while the Russian navy is in town.
And it’s not clear just who in government or the military knew about the invitation from Cuba. The Caribbean nation has been a full-throated supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine and Cubans have been fighting alongside Russian soldiers in that country.
A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence (DND) told CBC News on Friday that the department was aware the Russians would be in Havana port on the same days as the Canadians.
But when asked about the visit on CBC’s Power and Politics on Thursday evening, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told host David Cochrane she knew nothing about it.
One also notes that the Canadian warship (the HMCS Margaret Brooke, apparently) is not traveling in the company of an ocean-going tug to address the possibility that it breaks down and has to be towed back.
On top of that, Canada is not exactly the naval power of the U.S. or Britain or France or even Australia, but they’re still clearly not especially intimidated by the so-called powerful Russian navy.