Russians warships including a nuclear submarine visited the island nation of Cuba, which is about 400 miles from The Bahamas, last week. The ships carried out military drills and offered tours of the vessels to locals.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Fred Mitchell was asked by ZNS News for his reaction to the ships being in the region. He said, “it doesn’t look to me like there’s anything to be concerned about.”

Mitchell added, “people who are in the business of these big warships at sea and of course the Americans have a big navy obviously watch what other navies are doing. And it is always possible even in drill for mistakes to happen or some misfiring or some misunderstanding. So I think there are rules which apply when these drills are taking place. You have to notify people that your doing the drills so nobody gets taken by surprise.”

The Minister said that he does not think that there is ill-intend by the Russians toward The Bahamas. However, tensions between Russia and the United States continues about the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Mitchell also restated The Bahamas’ position that Russian should withdraw from Ukraine. “They shouldn’t be in Ukraine and they should withdraw from Ukraine. That position, I think, does not imperil The Bahamas in anyway as regards Russia and their intent toward us,” he said.

Mitchell said per public information the visit by the warships is a normal port of call that ships make from time to time. “In fact, I saw an extensive tour took place by a CNN reporter of the ship. So the Russians has allowed people to come and visit the ship similar to what happens when US and other ships come to The Bahamas, they allow people to go and tour the ships and sailors have a port of call and they come off and they intermingle with the local population. That’s the way it seems to me.”

The Russian ships left Cuba on Monday of this week.

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