- 2 days ago
Russia is back in Cuba. Here’s why it matters—and what Trump might do next.
👉 What World Leaders NEED to Know about Russia: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6d9EIByxz1AdkmIOYUlrDd0rmByq5zSN
Cuba is trending again for a reason. In this episode, Elvira Bary explains what Moscow actually wants from Havana in 2026, why it’s nothing like 1962, and why fuel—not missiles—is the real pressure point now. We’ll trace how Soviet subsidies built the regime, how Cuba was used as a proxy force abroad, what happened after the USSR collapsed, how Venezuela’s oil became Cuba’s lifeline, and why Russia’s recent naval signals are about leverage, optics, and distraction—not a repeat of the Cold War.
Video Chapters:
00:00 Missile Crisis 2.0? The Truth About Russia’s Return to Cuba
02:30 Missiles Near Miami
05:33 Subsidies Building Havana
08:03 Fists for Hire
11:32 When Subsidies Died
14:42 Fuel Is Politics
19:08 Leverage, Not Love
22:19 Tomahawks and Signals
25:16 The Collapsing Club
JOIN ME ON THE JOURNEY
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👉https://www.facebook.com/baryelvira/
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MY HISTORI
👉 What World Leaders NEED to Know about Russia: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6d9EIByxz1AdkmIOYUlrDd0rmByq5zSN
Cuba is trending again for a reason. In this episode, Elvira Bary explains what Moscow actually wants from Havana in 2026, why it’s nothing like 1962, and why fuel—not missiles—is the real pressure point now. We’ll trace how Soviet subsidies built the regime, how Cuba was used as a proxy force abroad, what happened after the USSR collapsed, how Venezuela’s oil became Cuba’s lifeline, and why Russia’s recent naval signals are about leverage, optics, and distraction—not a repeat of the Cold War.
Video Chapters:
00:00 Missile Crisis 2.0? The Truth About Russia’s Return to Cuba
02:30 Missiles Near Miami
05:33 Subsidies Building Havana
08:03 Fists for Hire
11:32 When Subsidies Died
14:42 Fuel Is Politics
19:08 Leverage, Not Love
22:19 Tomahawks and Signals
25:16 The Collapsing Club
JOIN ME ON THE JOURNEY
👉 Sign-up for news about the New Book here: https://elvirabary.com/elvira-barys-newsletter/
👉https://www.facebook.com/baryelvira/
👉https://www.instagram.com/elvira.bary/
MY HISTORI
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Cuba has been Russia's closest foothold in the Western Hemisphere for decades.
00:07Back in the Soviet era, Moscow kept Fidel Castro afloat with massive subsidies.
00:13Not out of love, but for one reason – a lever against the United States.
00:20That lever almost snapped the world in half in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis,
00:28when a small island turned into the most dangerous chess square on Earth.
00:34And now Cuba is in the headlines again.
00:37With Trump's recent talk, people are asking the same nervous question
00:41are we heading toward Bay of Pigs 2.0?
00:46A new missile crisis in history,
00:49looping back just with different faces on the posters.
00:54I am Elvira Barry.
00:55I grew up in the Soviet Union.
00:57Today, we will look at what Russia wants from Cuba right now,
01:01what it is willing to offer in return,
01:04and why this situation is fundamentally different from 1962.
01:10Here is our roadmap.
01:12Missiles near Miami.
01:13The original Cuban Missile Crisis and how it changed Cuba, Russia and the US.
01:20Subsidies building Havana.
01:21How Castro's regime survived on the Soviet aid.
01:25Fists for hire.
01:27How Cuba returned their favors by renting out its military.
01:32When subsidies died, what happened to Cuba after the Soviet Union collapsed?
01:38Fuel is politics.
01:40How oil imports from Venezuela became Cuba's new lifeline.
01:45Leverage, not love.
01:47What the Russian-Cuban relationship looks like today.
01:51Tomahovsk and signals.
01:53Why the Kremlin's response to Trump's announcement about Tomahovsk for Ukraine involved Cuba.
02:01The collapsing club.
02:03Why Cuba's main problem is being part of the informal dictators club.
02:08If you want more analysis like this, subscribe, like, and share.
02:14And if you'd like to support the channel, you can join my think tank, use PayPal or Superthings.
02:21Or click the hype button.
02:24Now, let's start where the fear was born.
02:28Missiles near Miami
02:32In 1959, Fidel Castro took power on a promise of dignity and justice.
02:37Within a few years, he locked Cuba in a direct confrontation with the United States.
02:43In April 1961, the Bay of Pigs invasion failed.
02:48But Havana realized just too well that the next attempt might be bigger and it might succeed.
02:57So, Cuba wanted a shield.
03:00And the Soviet Union wanted a forward position in a location where it could directly threaten the U.S.,
03:08its biggest geopolitical rival.
03:11That is how you get to 1962.
03:14Moscow secretly sent nuclear-capable missiles to Cuba.
03:18For Khrushchev, this was about changing the map.
03:22If you can place weapons near Florida, you can force Washington to treat you like an equal.
03:28The United States discovered the missiles through U-2 reconnaissance flights.
03:33Then Kennedy ordered a blockade, calling it a quarantine.
03:38Because even the vocabulary was dangerous.
03:42For 13 days, the world lived in fear of a nuclear war breaking out.
03:47The worst moment was October 27, when a U-2 was shut down over Cuba and the pressure spiked.
03:57The crisis unfolded much like a stirring game.
04:01But it did not end because anyone blinked.
04:05It ended because both sides found a common ground.
04:09The public part of the deal was simple.
04:12The Soviet Union would remove the missiles from Cuba.
04:16The United States would pledge not to invade Cuba.
04:21The private part was the key.
04:23Khrushchev demanded something he could sell at home.
04:28The removal of American Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
04:32Kennedy did not want that to look like a swap under pressure.
04:36So the United States quietly agreed to remove those Jupiters later.
04:42Those missiles were, in truth, already seen as obsolete.
04:47But such a deal, if made public, would still make him look bad on television.
04:53After the crisis, both sides added guardrails because they understood how close they came.
05:01The hotline came soon after and crisis management became its own kind of weapon.
05:08And Cuba?
05:10Cuba learned that when you let someone else place their big weapons on your soil,
05:16you become a battlefield without firing a shot.
05:20But still, Havana did not walk away from its dangerous friendship with the Soviet Union.
05:26This friendship was Castro's only chance to keep the country in his hands.
05:33Subsidies building Havana
05:37Custer stayed in power because Cuba got a patron that could replace the American market it had just lost.
05:45The US embargo didn't disappear.
05:48But it stopped being decisive when the Soviet bloc stepped in as a substitute.
05:55To stay part of this ecosystem, Cuba didn't have to become efficient.
06:00It only had to stay loyal.
06:03The core trade was deeply political.
06:07Cuba exported sugar and later nickel and other raw materials.
06:11The Soviet Union and the socialist bloc bought those goods on significantly
06:17better terms than the free market would offer.
06:20In return, Cuba got oil, machinery, and loans.
06:26In 1972, Cuba joined Comic-Con, which made this arrangement more structured.
06:32This is where many Western observers get lost.
06:36They look at the embargo and assume it should have crushed the regime.
06:42But an embargo works only when the target is isolated.
06:46And Cuba was connected with socialist states on the other side of the globe.
06:52The Soviet Union also kept supporting Custer's regime with military cooperation.
06:57The Cuban forces got training and intelligence ties.
07:01The kind of assistance that doesn't make headlines.
07:05And there's one more part that matters for today.
07:09The debt.
07:10Over decades, Cuba accumulated a massive Soviet-era debt.
07:14After the USSR collapsed, that debt became a ghost argument that poisoned the relationship with
07:22Russia for years.
07:23Then Moscow made a strategic decision.
07:27In 2013-2014, Russia agreed to write off 90% of Cuba's Soviet-era debt,
07:36Commonly reported as roughly $32 billion out of about $35 billion.
07:44Cuba would repay the remaining few billions over time.
07:48Why did Moscow do that?
07:50Not out of charity, but because it still needs Cuba for the same purposes the Soviet Union needed it for.
07:58As a lever close to the United States border.
08:02However, feasts for hire Moscow wanted rich without risk at home.
08:11Havana wanted money, protection, and a mission that could be sold as glory, not dependency.
08:17So Cuba became something like a hired feast for a patron who preferred to stay in the shadows.
08:25Angola is the cleanest example.
08:28In late 1975, Cuba rushed troops to support the local socialist government in the civil war.
08:35Roughly 36,000 Cuban soldiers arrived to Angola over the next few months.
08:41By the late 1980s, Cuba had tens of thousands of troops in Angola,
08:46and the fighting of Quito-Quan Vale became one of the symbolic peaks of that long intervention.
08:55For Moscow, that was clean leverage.
08:58If Cubans fight, the Soviet Union gains influence without putting Soviet conscripts in African graves.
09:06Havana benefited as well, just in a less obvious way.
09:12A small sanctioned island suddenly gets to act like a world power.
09:17That feeling helped the regime look taller than it was.
09:24Ethiopia is the second example.
09:26In the Afghan war, Soviet support and a large Cuban deployment helped Ethiopia reserve the battlefield.
09:33Declassified US intelligence reporting from the period describes a Cuban expeditionary force of around 17,000,
09:41providing the cutting edge for the counteroffensive.
09:45Now, ask the awkward question.
09:49Was Cuba doing its own foreign policy or was it rented out?
09:56The honest answer is both.
09:59And that's exactly why it worked.
10:01Castro had his own ideology and his own ego.
10:05He did not need Moscow to tell him that backing fellow revolutionaries was good propaganda,
10:12but the planes, the weapons, the fuel, and the long-term resupply depended on the Soviet system.
10:21Cuba could be bold as long as it stayed inside the patron's budget.
10:27There is a human detail to that error.
10:30Those Cuban kids in uniforms shipped across the ocean then sat back with scars and silence.
10:39In January 1989, as Cuban forces began pulling out of Angola,
10:44Western journalists got to interview Cuban soldiers.
10:48One 21-year-old soldier, Blanca Guinarte, said,
10:52If the peace agreement fails, we are willing to come back.
10:58That's the voice of someone who believes she is defending a noble cause.
11:03And that's the twist.
11:06Cuba's proxy role didn't just serve Soviet strategy.
11:10It also served Cuba's domestic control.
11:13It gave the regime a heroic story to wrap around an economy that could not stand on its own.
11:20This arrangement worked until Cuba got hit by the worst possible event
11:25for any client's state.
11:27Its patron disappeared when subsidies died.
11:35When the Soviet Union collapsed and Comic-Con vanished,
11:39Cuba lost its main market, its main supply,
11:43and the financial padding that made the whole system feel stable.
11:47What followed was the special period.
11:51And the name is almost a joke.
11:54There was nothing special about it.
11:56It was just scarcity every day for years.
12:01You can measure it in calories.
12:03The average food intake in Cuban residents dropping from about 3,000 calories per day in 1989
12:12to about 2,100 in 1993.
12:18Other studies report even lower numbers in the worst years.
12:22You can measure it in blackouts too, with long daily power cuts becoming part of normal life.
12:29You can also measure it in bodies.
12:32A famous line of research used Cuba as a grim natural experiment.
12:38People ate less and moved more because there was no fuel.
12:44One study described an average population weight loss of about 5.5 kg during the mid-1990s crisis.
12:54There also were sharp declines in diabetes and heart disease before weight regained later and those gains faded.
13:04But numbers still don't show the lived texture.
13:09For that, you need one ordinary sin.
13:13In September 1991, Havana started a program of issuing bicycles to city residents to conserve fuel.
13:21And every day, Gonzalez was now riding to work.
13:25Part of a city suddenly rebuilt around pedals because engines could not be fed.
13:33That's what economic collapse looks like when it hits transportation first.
13:38Abandoned, rusting vehicles and a lot of people on bikes.
13:44During the special period, Havana tightened control and also opened small pressure valves.
13:48The government leaned harder on rationing and policing, but it also allowed limited self-employment
13:56and pushed tourism and hard currency zones.
14:00Still, Russia built.
14:03By 1994, the island saw open anger on the Malecon in Havana, the Maleconazo.
14:11Around the same time, desperate people tried to flee by sea in large numbers,
14:15which led to the tugboat hurting the Marzo tragedy that took 41 lives.
14:21Cuba never truly recovered from its patrons collapse.
14:25Yes, it adapted and survived by building new income pipes.
14:29Tourism, emittances, deals with new patrons.
14:34And above all, fuel.
14:36Because without fuel, nothing moves.
14:45Today, the Cuban leadership desperately needs two things.
14:49A steady flow of hard currency and fuel, enough to keep the lights on and the streets quiet
14:55as the economy pillars are cracking, one after another.
15:00Start with the most fragile pillar – tourism.
15:03In 2024, official Cuban figures showed about 2.2 million international visitors to the island.
15:11Far below the government's earlier targets and still well under pre-pandemic levels.
15:19Fewer tourists mean less hard currency.
15:22Less hard currency means less ability to buy fuel and spare parts.
15:27Then, blackouts get worse and tourism gets even harder to sell.
15:33It's a loop that feeds on itself.
15:35The second pillar is remittances.
15:38Cubans working abroad send money home to their families for whom this money is often a lifeline.
15:45An estimated $2 billion comes to Cuba each year as remittances.
15:51But much of this money bypasses the state.
15:55Official transfer channels have been unstable recently.
15:58For example, Western Union shut down for months.
16:01That forced many senders into informal routes.
16:06The government tries to capture more remittance dollars through dollar stores, but to no avail.
16:14Now, the center of gravity – oil.
16:17For years, Venezuela was the key supplier.
16:21In the 2010s, it used to provide Cuba with about 100,000 barrels per day.
16:28By 2023, however, these exports dropped by near a half to around 55,000 barrels per day.
16:36Between January and November of 2025, Venezuela sent an average of about 27,000 barrels per day,
16:44covering roughly half of Cuba's oil deficit.
16:47Mexico stepping in more than expected.
16:50By May 2025, it was sending to Cuba about 20,100 barrels per day of crude and 2,700 barrels
16:59per day of oil products,
17:01valued around $600 million.
17:04But this still is not enough.
17:08For years, Cuba benefited from the global service layer that helps sanctioned countries move their oil.
17:16This layer, known as the Shadow Fleet, includes hundreds of ships and shady service providers
17:23that handle the paperwork.
17:25It operates under a variety of third-country flags, but the real beneficiaries are sanctioned regimes
17:34that sit on oil – Russia, Iran and, until recently, Venezuela.
17:39I have looked into this operation in another video.
17:42Venezuela used the Shadow Fleet to sell its oil to Cuba on better-than-market terms.
17:49Cuba was getting this oil really cheap, as Venezuela didn't have other major buyers in the region.
17:56With Maduro's fault, this arrangement is no more.
18:01International bodies are considering lifting sanctions from Venezuela so it will be able to sell its oil to other markets.
18:07It no longer needs Cuba as a loyal customer.
18:11And Cuba has no other supplier that can sell it that much oil that cheap.
18:18In January 2026, Reuters quoted a Havana business owner Mario Valverde saying
18:24that repercussions are not going to be very good about the loss of Venezuelan oil.
18:31That line is the whole story in one sentence.
18:35No fuel means no transport.
18:38No transport means no repairs.
18:41No repairs mean deeper blackouts.
18:44And deeper blackouts mean a government that has to spend more on control because it has less to offer.
18:53And unlike in the 1960s, no one is coming to rescue the regime in Havana, Russia will not do it.
19:02For the reasons we'll now take a look at.
19:07Leverage, not love
19:11Russia's goal in Cuba today is not to save Cuba.
19:14It's to use Cuba as a cheap lever in a fight for global dominance.
19:19The fight Russia is losing everywhere else.
19:22The lever works because of geography.
19:26Cuba is close enough to the United States that any Russian presence there reads like a message.
19:32Moscow wants Washington to feel a small itch at home.
19:36Not a heart attack, but still something that forces attention.
19:42That's why the most visible tool is fear at sea.
19:46In June 2024, a Russian naval group arrived in Havana including the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan and the
19:54frigate Admiral Gorshkov.
19:56Cuban officials said the ships carried no nuclear weapons.
20:01Russia called it a visit.
20:03Everyone else called it a show.
20:06A Reuters photo series captured the scene, the submarine, sliding into the bay while
20:13people watched from the seawall and tourists drift past in vintage cars.
20:19Like history is looping on purpose.
20:22This is the kind of signal Moscow loves.
20:25It is loud enough to make headlines.
20:28It is controlled enough to avoid real escalation.
20:31It tells the Kremlin's domestic audience,
20:34we can still scare America.
20:38And it tells Cuba, we are still here for you.
20:41Russia can bankroll the island the way the USSR did, but it can ship a tanker now and then,
20:47or rent credit, or promise parts for the grid.
20:51In March 2024, 19,000 metric tons of Russian oil arrived in Cuba after a year-long
20:58Hades, framed as help with power outages and fuel shortages.
21:04The third tool is access.
21:06Even when nothing dramatic is happening, Cuba is useful for intelligence and communications.
21:12A friendly port, friendly officials, a permissive environment for Russian services to operate.
21:18And the fourth tool is symbolism inside the global south.
21:23Russia wants to show it still has friends despite sanctions.
21:29Cuba wants to show it is not isolated.
21:32Both sides stage the same photo ops.
21:36Flags, hang shakes, speeches about historic ties.
21:41But since Russia stretched itself in with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine,
21:46Cuba became less of an asset and more of a bill.
21:52Every time Cuba's grid collapses further, the cost of stabilizing it rises.
21:58Russia's economy is already strained by war and sanctions.
22:01So Moscow tries to buy influence in small pieces.
22:07One fuel delivery, one headline, then back to scarcity.
22:12That is not helping Cuba much.
22:14But that's all Moscow is willing to spare.
22:19Tomahovsk and Signals
22:22In October 2025, President Trump said he might send Ukraine long-range Tomahov missiles if Russia
22:31did not move towards setting the war.
22:34It was a threat delivered on Air Force One, the way Trump likes to do it.
22:40Public, blunt, designed to land in Moscow in real time.
22:46Russia reacted like it always does.
22:49To a threat it can't fully control.
22:52With escalation talk.
22:54Dmitry Medvedev warned that supplying Tomahovsk could end badly.
23:01Leaning on the old Russian argument that Tomahovsk are hard to distinguish after launch.
23:07And that this creates nuclear risk.
23:10It's a familiar trick.
23:12Turn a conventional weapons question into an apocalipsis question.
23:18Make the West feel responsible for the sky falling.
23:22Another part of Russia's response directly involved Cuba.
23:26Amid the Tomahovsk talks, Russia's upper house ratified an intergovernmental agreement on military cooperation with Cuba that had been signed
23:37in March 2025.
23:39On November 2, Trump backed off, saying for now he was not considering a Tomahov deal for Ukraine.
23:49For Russia, that looked like their Cuban move worked.
23:53When Moscow wants to warn Washington, it has only a few places where a small move looks bigger than it
24:00is.
24:01Cuba is one of them.
24:03And this is also why Washington keeps circling back to their island.
24:08Cuba is close enough to the US coastline to be strategically intolerable in a major confrontation.
24:16And if you want to squeeze Cuba, you don't start with Havana.
24:21You start with the fuel line.
24:24That fuel line used to run through Venezuela.
24:28That's why pressure on Venezuela hits Cuba like a punch to the engine.
24:33There's one more detail worth holding onto.
24:36This is not 1962.
24:39Russia is not placing missiles on Cuba.
24:42Moscow's goal is to create anxiety and destruction without overspending or risking a direct confrontation.
24:51The Renewed Military Collaboration Agreement achieves exactly that.
24:56So, when you see Russian flags in Havana, don't ask,
25:01are they about to start a war with America?
25:05Ask the more realistic question, what message are they trying to send?
25:10And what problem are they trying to dodge?
25:14The Collapsing Club
25:19Cuba's biggest problem is that it's been stuck for decades as part of the Dictators Club,
25:26a network of authoritarian regimes that help each other evade Western sanctions and survive.
25:32And today, we are seeing this club collapsing.
25:36When Bashar Assad's regime fell in Syria, that was a strong blow to the network.
25:42But the capture of Nicolas Maduro and the escalating protests in Iran can possibly put an end to it.
25:51Without Venezuelan oil, Cuba's fuel cap widens beyond repair.
25:56The island can't simply replace that supply because suppliers want cash and insurers want paperwork.
26:05That's why Cuba's leadership keeps hunting for any patron or workaround it can find.
26:11It turns to Russia for help, but the former patron can offer nothing but an occasional batch of fuel.
26:18And even this tiny stream might soon dry out because of the events in Iran.
26:25This January, Iran entered a major internal crisis.
26:29Two weeks of large-scale protests resulted in thousands of deaths
26:34and a severe crackdown with mass arrests.
26:37The protesters have reportedly taken over two cities in the west of the country.
26:43For Putin's Russia, Iran is a critical partner.
26:47When Iran destabilizes, Russia's club of dictators and shadow fleet operations get weaker.
26:55Routes get riskier.
26:57Money gets nervous.
26:59Oil prices jump around.
27:01And every partner starts hoarding resources for themselves.
27:06That's the opposite of the old Soviet era,
27:09when Moscow could spend freely on loyal clients because it had a huge system behind it.
27:16Putin doesn't have that system.
27:18He has a war, sanctions and a shrinking margin.
27:21So, the relationship with Cuba is tuned down.
27:25Moscow offers just enough to keep the door open and Havana accepts because it has no luxury of pride.
27:32This is why the last illusion needs to die.
27:36Russia is not coming back as Cuba's patron.
27:38It simply can't afford such a move.
27:42What we are watching is a relationship between two states that both need the West to survive,
27:49while cursing the West on TV.
27:52Now, I want to hear from you because this is where the story stops being history and becomes a forecast.
28:00What do you think Trump's next move regarding Cuba could be?
28:04Does he squeeze the fuel line harder, cut the deal quietly,
28:09or try to turn Cuba into a public-strength headline?
28:14Drop your predictions in the comments and tell me what you are basing it on.
28:20Strategy, domestic politics, or pure instinct?
28:25I read the comments.
28:27If you want more long-form analysis like this, without panic, without slogans,
28:33please like, subscribe, and share.
28:35And if you'd like to support the channel and keep it independent, you can join my think tank,
28:41use PayPal or Superthings, or click the hype button.
28:46Every bit helps this reach the people who actually want depth.
28:50See you in the next one.
28:55See you in the next two.
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