The deputy chairman of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, Aleksey Chepa, has called for restoring Russian military bases in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa.
He came out with this initiative at a session of the lower house while discussing the issue of ratifying the Russian-Syrian agreement on the deployment of Russia’s air group in Syria.
"It is necessary to consider the issue of our presence in other regions of the world. I believe that it would meet Russia’s national interests to restore our military bases in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa," TASS cited him as saying.
According to Alexander Chepa, these bases will be aimed at "prevention of military operations against friendly states from external forces, which is essentially a provoking of military conflicts". By this Russia guarantees the security and human rights in various regions, "while the US, with more than 650 military bases abroad, is building up its military presence in order to establish control over the global geopolitical space."
A military observer of the TASS news agency, retired Colonel Viktor Litovkin, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that today Russia is really interested in military bases located not far from the United States.
"For example, it would be interesting to have our own material-technical facilities and military bases in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to quickly respond Washington's aggression. This also applies to Vietnam because the US claims a monopoly presence in the Asia-Pacific region," he said in the first place, adding that it is necessary to request the countries, whether they are ready to open Russian military base on their territory.
At the same time, this is a project for the distant future due to the lack of proper funding of the military presence in foreign countries. "We can speak of human rights, but with a lack of resources the project will be limited by only statements. For now, there is no possibility for actual placement of bases in these regions. I should note that the US military spending is more than $ 600 billion per year, while Russia's is $60 billion," Viktor Litovkin stressed.
The President of the National Strategy Institute, Mikhail Remizov, in turn, was confident that only punctual placement of new database or reconstruction of the old ones makes sense. "Russia should not try on the role of the Soviet Union, especially the US role of a global infrastructure of military and political presence. Russia's tasks are defined in terms of national interests, not global domination. Certain military facilities in certain regions can be beneficial in terms of real Russia's interests and possibilities: repair bases for the fleet, electronic tracking stations," he suggested.
"We have no reason to deploy the infrastructure on a full scale and consider our military presence in different parts of the globe as an end in itself. The most interesting proposal is the restoration of the Cuba base. It is important to determine whether this base can be really important and useful not only at war but in peace time," Mikhail Remizov added.
