The Kremlin turns up the volume: Putin says the nuclear race “is already underway” and a deputy nods to the memory of the 1962 crisis. All this while Washington evaluates sending Tomahawks to Kiev
Friday opened with new threatening statements from Vladimir Putin. The Russian president stated that the “global race for nuclear weapons is already underway”, admitted that Russia could test weapons if others did so and repeated that, without a nuclear agreement — especially between Moscow and Washington —, control of arsenals could collapse.
The words come at a time when Moscow accuses the US of planning to provide Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles.
The day before, the think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) described a campaign of reflexive control (in political science, it is the Kremlin’s technique of shaping the opponent’s perception with calculated information so that he, by his own decision, chooses the option that the opponent wants) to dissuade Washington from sending Tomahawks, including the threat – aired by Russian officials and propagandists – of moving Russian missiles to Cuba. The ISW quotes, among others, deputy Alexei Zhuravlyov suggesting that military cooperation with Havana would allow the positioning of assets close to the USA, in an explicit evocation of 1962.
In parallel, Moscow has toughened its discourse on the Tomahawks: a Duma veteran warned that Russia will “destroy” the missiles and their platforms if they reach Ukraine. And diplomats like Sergei Ryabkov warned of a “qualitative” escalation if the Americans sent them to Kiev.
The Trump administration admits that it is “considering the Ukrainian request”, but has not yet made a final decision.
The reference to Cuba functions as a historical rearview mirror — a throwback to the 1962 Missile Crisis — but, until now, there is no public proof of logistical or military preparations for an actual deployment on Cuban territory. The ISW frames the message as an instrument of “psychological pressure” to stop the sending of the Tomahawks, rather than a concrete operational movement.
All this intersects with the impasse of the last major US-Russia nuclear treaty (“New START”) and with Putin’s rhetoric that, if there is no extension of “New START”, “it is no drama for Russia”, despite considering it desirable to maintain limits for another year.
The result is a more volatile board: war in Ukraine, far-reaching arms in debate in Washington and a Russian narrative that reopens the Caribbean lexicon to try to influence the American decision.
In October 1962, the US detected from photographs of U-2 planes that the USSR was installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Action-reaction: Washington imposed a naval “quarantine” on the island, the world experienced 13 days of direct confrontation and, after negotiations, the Soviet Union then agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for a public commitment not to invade Cuba and a secret withdrawal of the North American Jupiter missiles from Turkey (and, later, Italy).
The episode led to the creation of the Washington–Moscow (or Kennedy–Kruschev) hotline and marked the beginning of more formal arms control efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
