Lavrov draws parallels between Ukraine war, Cuban missile crisis

TASS

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he hopes US President Joe Biden has the wisdom to deal with a global confrontation similar to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, referencing the war on Ukraine.

Russia’s military operation in Ukraine has triggered the biggest hostilities between Moscow and the West since the Cuban crisis, when the Soviet Union and United States came close to a nuclear war, Al Jazeera reported.

At the time, US President John F Kennedy discovered that Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had deployed nuclear missiles on Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion – a US-backed coup attempt by Cuban exiles to overthrow the communist leadership.

In October 1962, a Soviet submarine captain wanted to launch a nuclear weapon after the US Navy dropped depth charges around the submarine. Later that day, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove all US missiles from Turkey in exchange for Khrushchev removing the same from Cuba.

The crisis was defused, though it became a symbol of the perils of superpower rivalry in the Cold War.

In an interview for a Russian state television documentary on the missile crisis, Lavrov said there were “similarities” to the Cuban crisis, mainly because Russia was now threatened by Western weapons in Ukraine.

“I hope that in today’s situation, President Joe Biden will have more opportunities to understand who gives orders and how,” Lavrov said.

“This situation is very disturbing. The difference is that in the distant 1962, Khrushchev and Kennedy found the strength to show responsibility and wisdom, and now we do not see such readiness on the part of Washington and its satellites.”