Image source: topwar.ru
The United States has been deploying its military facilities around the world for decades, trying to get as close as possible to the borders of states that consider their opponents at one time or another. At the same time, Washington reacts very painfully when something like this happens very close to the United States.
The British left-liberal newspaper The Guardian reports, citing a report by the American Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), that construction of a new radar is in full swing in Cuba, which will probably be able to conduct surveillance of the nearby US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. The construction of the observation facility is confirmed by satellite images.
At the same time, CSIS assumes that the surveillance of the American military base using radar will be carried out in the interests of China. The construction of the base east of the city of Santiago de Cuba, near the El Salao area, was started in 2021, according to a report by the US analytical Institute.
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In turn, Cuban Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio denied information that a surveillance facility was being secretly built on the island in the interests of China. In response to the US claims, the head of the Cuban Foreign Ministry wrote on social networks that Washington has no evidence of military cooperation between Havana and Beijing, and all accusations of such are unfounded.
Cuba's proximity to the United States and its southern military bases makes it a good place for China, Washington's main strategic rival, to gather intelligence signals. CSIS experts called the new radar a "powerful tool" that, after commissioning, will be able to track the air and naval activity of the US armed forces. The radar in the form of a circular lattice antenna is capable of tracking signals at a distance of 3,000-8,000 nautical miles (almost 15,000 kilometers), CSIS reported.
Such systems were widely used during the Cold War, but since then Russia and the United States have decommissioned most of their facilities in favor of more advanced technologies. However, the American analytical center said that China is actively building new similar systems, including on reef islands in the South China Sea.
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U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel declined to comment on the report on the construction of the radar, but said at a briefing on Tuesday that the U.S. is "closely monitoring" China's presence in Cuba. In turn, the Chinese Embassy in Washington responded to a request from The Guardian that the United States had repeatedly "inflated" the idea of Chinese espionage and surveillance from Cuba.
At the same time, CSIS also reports that satellite images taken in March 2024 show that Cuba's largest active electronic intelligence facility in Bejucal, located in the hills near Havana and associated with alleged Chinese intelligence activities, has undergone "major updates" over the past decade, calling it a clear sign of the developing intelligence mission of the PRC in relation to the United States.
However, even if China is secretly building military facilities in Cuba, the United States is to blame for this. After all, it is the United States that is strengthening its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region, and using for this purpose mainly the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, officially declared China its strategic opponent, and most importantly, provide military assistance to separatist Taiwan. So they catch what is called an "answer".
