The Duran Podcast - Cuba's Big Bet on Russia and Why It Could Spark a 1962-Style Crisis

Episode Date: April 19, 2026

Cuba's Big Bet on Russia and Why It Could Spark a 1962-Style Crisis

All right, Alexander, let's talk about Cuba and what is happening with Cuba, the U.S. blockade of Cuba, which is still ongoing, actually. I mean, we have the blockade in Iran against Iran, but you also have the blockade of Cuba. And the last video that we recorded, we basically outlined two different options that Cuba has. one option would be to negotiate with the United States, to enter the talks with the United States, and to figure out a way to exist with the United States, most likely on the U.S.'s terms, or that Cuba could move closer to Bricks, to Russia, to China, given that Benazil as well as now out of the equation. It looks like Cuba, well, I'll just let you give the surprise,

the surprise development to all of this. Yes. I should say, by the way, and before I do that, you know, I think our reporting of the whole Cuba crisis is being vindicated in important respects in the sense that we were the first people. The Duran was the first place to highlight the Russian dimension to this. And nobody else was talking about this a few weeks ago, except us. But now it's becoming increasingly clear. We discussed the options, and they were exactly the options that you mentioned. The Russians had managed to send a ship, a tanker to break the plodcade, and it provided Cuba with 750,000 barrels of oil, which obviously helps.

But we pointed out that this is only going to buy a certain amount of time for Cuba, and Cuba needs to make a choice. does it use that time to try to negotiate a better deal with the Americans, or does it go with the Russians? And the further point we made over the course of that program was that going with the Russians does come with certain consequences. The Russians today, though they have great sympathy and emotional feelings about Cuba are not the Soviets. They're not going to provide economic aid to Cuba for free. They will want significant economic concessions from the Cubans. And, well, we said that Cuba needed to make a choice.

We thought, I thought, that the Cubans, were more likely to decide to go with the Americans. It seemed to me that there were powerful groups within Cuba that would be keen on opening up to the US and which would not want to fall back again into the hands of the Russians. But in fact, and to my frank surprise, things have gone in the other direction.

So the Russian ship arrived soon after the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ljyabkov, who is a very senior Russian foreign ministry official indeed. He is the second man in the foreign ministry and he's widely seen by many people as Lavrov's potential successor. Anyway, he turned up in Havana. He had a meeting with the various senior officials of the Cuban. leadership. There was a lot of talk about Russia's continued support for Cuba. Lavrov, sorry, Rialbkov said that the Russians would continue to support Cuba in every way that they could. He said, indeed, exactly the point that we've made in programs that the Russians have an enormous emotional feeling towards Cuba, that Cuba has always stood by them.

And they will always, therefore, stand by Cuba and will do. so in its hour of need. So there's an awful lot of that talk. And subsequently, we're getting reports that another Russian tanker is now being prepared to send a further cargo of oil to Cuba. This time, diesel, by the way, and a diesel oil. So, you know, it's not crude oil, but actual refined or refined diesel, which, you know, to get the Cuban trucks and vehicles moving again. But exactly as we said, the Cubans have had to make major economic concessions. And there are reports in the Russian media that the Cubans have agreed that large parts of their industries are now going to be placed under essentially Russian control, that the Russians are going to take over running of

factories, that individual Russian companies are coming in and will be operating those factories. They'll be providing spare parts, machine tools, those things. Bear in mind, many of these factories will have been created during the Castro era, during the time of Cuban relations with the Soviet Union. So it should not be hugely difficult to upgrade them again and get them back into production. The Russians can supply spare parts. But the point is, the key thing is we are looking at a major Russian. Let's call it a takeover of the Cuban economy.

And it won't be a total takeover. We're not going to return to the type of model that Cuba had in the 1970. or anything like that. But for the time being, Cuba seems to have decided, or the Cuban leadership seems to have decided that they will go with the Russians rather than with the Americans. And that appears to be the choice they've made. How does the United States react to this, if this is indeed the case? And how does Russia and I imagine China is also backing Russia and Bricks is going to back Russia, more so China. How are they going to react to what will be, without a doubt, a U.S. retaliation? Well, indeed, this is the huge question.

Maybe even a ground operation. There are some reports that Trump may even be preparing for a ground operation. Yes, yes. Which, to be clear, I think is more likely to run into resistance than the American ground operation in Cuba, in Venezuela. And the Russians are going to be there on the ground in Cuba, so it will probably be a more challenging and complex operation than that. I think more likely, at least initially, we will get American attempts to tighten the blockade of Cuba. Now, there are very few American warships, apparently, in the region.

if we start to see more American warships appearing in the region, that will be another big event. Of course, the United States, its navy is now heavily involved in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. So this is not an ideal time for the United States to start something like that against the Russians and the Caribbean. but I find it very difficult to believe that Rubio and the people around him are going to just let this evolve in the way that appears to be happening at the present time but sanctions against the Russians obviously are not is not going to stop the Russians if the Americans want to stop this continuing and developing, then they're going to have to deploy warships to tighten the blockade and to threaten to board Russian ships and to stop them from going to Cuba.

And that will take us again back to the situation that happened in 1962 when that is exactly what President Kennedy did. He ordered a sea blockade of Cuba with the American fleet and the American ships were going to stop Soviet cargo vessels from traveling to Cuba. And Premier Khrushchev said that would be unacceptable. And he started to deploy the Soviet Navy, such as it was in those days, very much smaller than it became later. To the Atlantic, Soviet submarines with nuclear weapons started to appear in the Atlantic. and Khrushchev said that he would occupy Berlin if the Americans conducted an operation against Cuba

and, anyway, we were in a crisis situation between the United States and the Soviet Union, such as we've never been since. And if we have a standoff between the Russian Navy's and the American Navy, and bear in mind, the Russian Navy today, is far more powerful than the Soviet Navy was in. 1962. The Soviet Navy barely had nuclear submarines. The Soviet, the Russian Navy today, has very

advanced nuclear submarines indeed. And so many of them, and they're very active in the Atlantic. Well, if we are in that kind of scenario, then as I said, on top of the situation in the Persian Gulf, well, I think we will be in a very alarming position indeed. Now, So the question then becomes, if the Americans impose the blockade, what will the Russians do? And as I said, they could go all the way and do what Khrushchev did, or they might back off. We'll just have to see. We've got a Trump and not a Kennedy, though, in the United States. We do, absolutely.

That's the problem. There is a problem. Absolutely. Trump. Talk on Trump as well. So you could make that argument as well. Absolutely. I think there is a way out of this, actually.

And I think this is a thing that people do need to say. Again, I mean, this is, again, it's expecting some reason and rationality on the American side. But the Russians can say, look, we have this connection with Cuba. We care about Cuba. Cuba has been our friend. We can't just let Cuba fall in the way that you want. It's something that the Russian. public would be unhappy, unhappy with, and which we would be unhappy with. So we are going to

support Cuba, but we are going to stick to the agreement that Kennedy and Kruschev ultimately negotiated in 1962. We're not about going to install nuclear weapons there. We are prepared, if you like, to develop this further. We will make whatever agreements you require so that Cuba should never be any kind of threat to you. The Cuba of today is not the Cuba of the 1960s when it was led by a charismatic Fidel Castro who wanted to expand communism all over South America. I mean, there's no danger of anything like that now. Leave us effectively in charge in Cuba and we will ensure that Cuba develops, but develops in a way that is not dangerous to yourselves. We can even have American tourists and Canadian tourists and people like that coming.

Why not? We have no objection to that. And maybe in time, once the situation stabilizes, we could even start to establish contacts with the Cuban community in Miami. We're not communists in the way that we used to be. We might even find a way back. Some of them may be able to come back, or we can negotiate compensation for them or something of that kind. But you see, all of this, again, depends on a degree of rationality on the American side. And, I mean, there's very little sign of that at the moment.

Yeah, I agree. All right. We'll end the video there at the durand.com. We are in Rumble, Telegram, X, and Substack. Also go to the Draft Shop, pick up some merch. There is a link in the description box down below. Take care.