Russia’s Lavrov needles Biden over Cuban Missile Disaster and Ukraine

LONDON: President Vladimir Putin’s international minister on Sunday (Oct 30) needled Joe Biden over Ukraine, saying that he hoped the US president had the knowledge to cope with a world confrontation much like the 1962 Cuban missile disaster.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the largest confrontation between Moscow and the West for the reason that Cuban disaster when the Soviet Union and United States got here near nuclear battle.

Then-US President John Kennedy found that Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev had deployed nuclear missiles on Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion – a US-backed try by Cuban exiles to overthrow Communist rule that was thwarted by Cuba – and the US deployment of missiles in Italy and Turkey.

In an interview for a Russian state tv documentary on the missile disaster, International Minister Sergei Lavrov stated there have been similarities to 1962, largely as a result of Russia was now threatened by Western weapons in Ukraine.

“I hope that in in the present day’s scenario, President Joe Biden can have extra alternatives to grasp who offers orders and the way,” Lavrov stated. “This example may be very disturbing.”

“The distinction is that within the distant 1962, Khrushchev and Kennedy discovered the power to point out duty and knowledge, and now we don’t see such readiness on the a part of Washington and its satellites,” Lavrov stated.

A spokesperson for the White Home Nationwide Safety Council declined to touch upon Lavrov’s statements however pointed to previous feedback about holding traces of communication open with Moscow.

The highest US and Russian generals held talks by cellphone on Monday for the primary time since Might, a day after the US and Russian defence ministers spoke for second time in three days after not talking since Might.

On Oct 27, 1962, the world got here near nuclear battle when a Soviet submarine captain needed to launch a nuclear weapon after the US Navy dropped depth costs across the submarine.

Later that day, Kennedy secretly agreed to take away all missiles in Turkey in change for Khrushchev eradicating all missiles in Cuba. The disaster was subtle, although it grew to become a logo of the perils of superpower rivalry within the Chilly Battle.

President Vladimir Putin cites the West’s dismissal of Russian issues concerning the safety of post-Soviet Europe, and particularly the enlargement of the NATO navy alliance eastwards, as one of many causes of the battle.

America and its European allies say Russian issues are overblown and can’t justify the invasion of a former Soviet neighbour whose borders Moscow recognised after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine says it is going to battle till it has ejected each Russian from its territory, casting Russia’s huge energy diplomacy as a sham used to distract from an imperial-style land seize that Kyiv says is doomed.

Requested what Russia ought to do now within the present disaster, Lavrov stated: “The readiness of Russia, together with President Vladimir Putin, for negotiations stays unchanged.”