Lavrov's mini-tour to the US 'backyard' in the midst of a storm

“Moscow and Havana are united in their desire to move towards the construction of a more just multipolar world order,” announced the Russian Foreign Ministry hours before its head, Sergei Lavrov, began his ninth visit to the Caribbean island in two decades.. A mini-tour that continues this Tuesday in Caracas and will continue on Wednesday in Brazil to attend the G-20 Summit, in the midst of the storm unleashed by the suspicious death in prison of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and when the second year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, also plans to influence the geostrategic board of the Americas, who will meet tomorrow in Brazil with Lula da Silva and will later travel to Argentina to meet with its president, Javier Milei..

With all the traditional pageantry, which includes the floral offering at the monument to José Martí in the Plaza de la Revolución, Lavrov met with the Cuban authorities to show the rest of the planet that his alliances reach only 160 kilometers from US territory.. “Forever friendship and commitment,” stressed Granma, official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC)..

After the meeting with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez, Vladimir Putin's Foreign Minister praised his “most important collaborator” in Latin America, with whom, he insisted, he shares the vision of a new “fairer” world order and democratic”. The Cuban revolution has celebrated 65 years in power this January 1, with the PCC becoming the “governing body of society”.

“The US and Western countries use blackmail and threats to impose their hegemony. “Cuba knows first-hand the impact of US sanctions,” criticized Lavrov, who assured that the time has come to unite to eradicate “neocolonial practices.”. Moscow has had the invaluable media support of the three continental dictatorships (Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua) to spread its political propaganda around the invasion of Ukraine throughout the continent..

“The main objective of this tour is to strengthen Moscow's ties with its autocratic allies and its populist partners.. Send a message to what the Russians call the backyard (the famous backyard of the US, coined in its day to describe Latin America by the Monroe doctrine). “You are still in Ukraine and we are in Cuba and Venezuela, in the heart of the West,” historian Armando Chaguaceda revealed to EL MUNDO..

A second objective, at a practical level, has to do with “commercial security with its illiberal allies and with its commercial partners, which are democracies with populist governments, like Lula, who has refused to condemn Russia and who has relativized everything, including the death of Navalny,” Chaguaceda described to this newspaper.

Very little is known about how the Russian plan, agreed with Havana, has progressed to design the new economic model of the island, mired in a serious social and economic crisis.. In principle, it sought to imitate the authoritarian state capitalism currently in force in Russia..

A “stand by”, as economist Pavel Vidal, former official of the Central Bank of Cuba, points out, a project that is not moving forward but that has not been officially discarded..

Very little is also known about the secret agreements between governments that have brought Cuban mercenaries to the battlefield.. There has also been no progress following the request of Alexei Zhuravlev, vice president of the Defense Committee of the Russian Duma, to install missile systems and supply submarines to the “friends” of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.. “Russian hypersonic missiles will reach the US faster than the more vulnerable subsonic missiles from the US side,” the leader surprised.