Posted on 02/09/2019 1:46:00 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
Russia has approved a 38 million euro ($43.27 million) loan for Cuba's defense sector.
The deal was first announced in November after Russian President Vladimir Putin met Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Moscow.
It has now been finalized by Russia, Dmitry Shugayev, head of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, said in an interview published in Russia's Kommersant business daily.
Communist-ruled Cuba is a close ally of Venezuela, where Moscow-backed President Nicolas Maduro is facing pressure from the opposition and Western governments to step down.
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
In the grand scheme of things, $43 million isn’t much.
If a entire country need to borrow a paltry 40 something million i would call that a bad investment on russia’s part...unless they are counting on a default.
Cuba is cheap outside tourist sector. I think average salary is like $10 a week and $1000 buys you a house.
A default would be a good play if the collateral was “right”. If the collateral was REALLY (i.e., planned, as you surmised) right it could be a VERY good play.
Somebody will be getting their pockets nicely lined.
Do they really expect to get their money back? What concession could Russia take advantage of?
Basing rights for ships? Access to their old missile bases? Lots of possibilities.
Missile base is a safe bet. Cancelation of IRBM treaty disproportionately benefits US at this point. US has multiple places to put IRBMs to target Russia and Russia lacks any within intermediate range from mainland US. Returning to Cuba is a perfectly logical idea from their perspective in that sense.
We should have blown up one of Castros troop ships on the way to Angola.
But they can buy half a fighter jet for that!
I think new jets are low on their priority list since they didn’t have a working jeep to take Castro’s corpse to cemetery.
Maybe some canned beef, underwear and a few rolls of toilet paper?
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