Russian submarine’s Cuba visit is a big US intelligence opportunity

Tensions between Russia and the United States are growing amid Vladimir Putin’s fury over Western support for Ukraine and President Joe Biden’s distinctly hesitant response to Russian escalations.

Signaling a growing interest in leveraging its military power to foster American fears of escalation in advance of the U.S. elections, Russian warships are about to make a port call in Cuba. A longtime Russian ally, Cuba will host warships including the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and the Yasen/M-class cruise missile submarine Kazan. The visit next Wednesday to Sunday may have been arranged during an April meeting between Putin’s hawkish adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, and Cuba’s security minister.

Notably, the Cuban Defense Ministry has said that “None of the ships carry nuclear weapons, so their stopover in our country does not represent a threat to the region.” This comment underlines the Cuban government’s concern at Washington’s possible reaction. But it’s also an absurd statement, being that the Kazan’s complement can include tactical nuclear warheads and that the Cubans know full well that the Russians would happily lie to them were Kazan equipped in that fashion.

Still, whether or not Kazan is nuclear-armed, this visit is manifestly more beneficial to U.S. security than it is dangerous. For one, the Russians are openly admitting the shoddy reliability of Admiral Gorshkov and the Russian surface fleet by sending a refueler and tug to join this deployment. More importantly, however, this deployment provides a unique intelligence collection opportunity for the U.S.

This is of particular import in relation to the Kazan. Very quiet by Russian submarine standards, the Yasen-class have sometimes evaded the intense Anglo-American mission to monitor all Russian submarine forces from the moment they exit their bases in the Russian far north to the moment they return. There were indications of such an incident during the 2021 G7 summit, for example. Russian submarines and crews are the most capable force in the Russian military and are now providing outsize value to China as it prepares for war with the U.S.

But with Kazan now coming so close to the U.S. coast, it presents a tantalizing opportunity for the U.S. to attempt to gather a more varied and greater saturation of sensor readings on the vessel. These sensor readings are critical toward enabling the future monitoring and, if necessary, targeting of enemy submarines. While I understand that the U.S. has had notable success in recent years in strengthening its understanding of the Yasen-M class’s sonar profile, Cuba offers a unique opportunity to collect on Kazan in warmer, shallow waters. Sonar and other intelligence collection methods are significantly affected by problems such as water depth, salinity, and temperature. Building a sensor profile that encompasses a maximal range of oceanic conditions is extremely valuable.

The Russians will be well aware of this.

In turn, they will attempt to sail and position Kazan in ways and areas that are less easily accessible to U.S. intelligence activity. One potential docking location is the former Soviet submarine base at Cienfuegos, on Cuba’s southern coast. As in the satellite screenshots below, Cienfuegos is a good distance away from both the U.S. coast and the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay (on Cuba’s southeastern tip). It has a narrow inlet that could be closely monitored for intrusion. It’s unclear whether the dilapidated facility has been upgraded to support even a short visit by a Russian submarine.

Yet Russia’s greater risk here is that the U.S. has some pretty unique capabilities (some science fiction-esque) to get close to things without being seen. In the end, Putin must hope that Biden’s risk aversion will translate to his prohibiting some of the riskier but more creative means of collecting intelligence on Kazan. But I’d argue that the Russian strategic benefits of this deployment are plainly outweighed by their tactical risks.

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