In breaking news, the USS Helena, a fast-attack nuclear submarine, has surfaced in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, just a day after Russian naval forces arrived in Havana for drills with Cuba, a Russian ally.
According to a statement from US Southern Command, the USS Helena is in Guantanamo Bay as part of a routine port visit while transiting the US Southern Command geographic area of responsibility for global maritime security and national defense.
The movements of Navy submarines are typically highly classified and not publicly disclosed.
The Pentagon confirmed that the Russian flotilla, which is 90 miles off the coast of Florida, does not pose a threat to US security. Navy destroyers and P-8 submarine hunting aircraft have been tracking the Russian ships as they move south along the east coast of the United States.
Pentagon spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, stated, “We’ve been tracking the Russians’ plans for this. This is not a surprise. We’ve seen them do these type of port calls before, and these are routine naval visits that we’ve seen under different administrations.”
She also emphasized, “We’re constantly monitoring any foreign vessels operating near US territorial waters. We take it seriously, but these exercises do not pose a threat to the United States.”
The USS Helena, based in Norfolk, is a Los Angeles-class, fast-attack, nuclear-powered submarine first commissioned in the 1980s, designed to surveil and respond to threats globally.
In a related event, the USS Pasadena, another Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine, visited Guantanamo Bay last July, causing tension with the Cuban government, who viewed it as an escalation. The Pentagon suggested that the current visit of a Russian submarine to Cuba was partially a response to last year’s visit of a US submarine.
