Russian Bombers Could Be Deployed to Cuba

Move Would Be Response to U.S. Missile Defense System, Newspaper Izvestia Says Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, July 22, 2008; Page A10 MOSCOW, July 21 -- Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons could be deployed to Cuba in response to U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, a Russian newspaper reported Monday, citing an unnamed senior Russian air force official. The report in Izvestia, which could not be confirmed, prompted memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear war after Nikita Khrushchev put nuclear missiles on the Caribbean island. The weapons were eventually withdrawn in an apparent Soviet climb-down, but President Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S. missiles from Turkey. A spokesman for the... [read full story]