MOSCOW _ The Russian newspaper Izvestia reported Thursday that crews from Russian strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons have surveyed sites in Cuba for possible refueling stopovers.
The newspaper reported on Monday that Russia was considering the move.
The Russian defense ministry said Thursday that there was no plan to deploy bombers to Cuba and called the earlier anonymous allegations carried by Izvestia "disinformation" and a "media hoax," according to state news service Interfax. However, Izvestia, which is controlled by Gazprom, a state-owned gas company that many consider a mouthpiece of Russia's ruling elite, didn't withdraw its initial report.
Although the White House called the Izvestia account "speculative," Gen. Norton Schwartz, the nominee to be Air Force chief of staff, said this week that the appearance of Russian nuclear-capable planes in Cuba would be "something that crosses a threshold, crosses a red line for the United States of America."
Izvestia's latest account, which quoted unnamed defense ministry officials, said the crews' visit didn't mean that Russian bombers had landed on the island just south of Florida.
It wasn't immediately clear Thursday evening how to reconcile the report in Izvestia and the defense ministry statement. Many Russian analysts so far have regarded the escalating rhetoric as just that _ verbal jousting between the U.S. and Russia over U.S. plans to build a missile defense shield in two former Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe.
Adding to the confusion, former Cuban President Fidel Castro released a statement on Wednesday saying that the current president, his brother Raul, had done the right thing by maintaining "dignified silence" during the dustup. Castro didn't indicate whether the reports of plans for Russian bombers in Cuba, an echo of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, were true.
Despite the Russian government's denunciation of the stories, it's unlikely that news media closely affiliated with the government would have reported them without government knowledge and acquiescence.
Another state news agency, RIA Novosti, carried the Izvestia story and added that: "At present, the Russian military is considering the possibility of establishing so-called 'jump-up' bases in various regions of the world to provide refueling and maintenance support for the patrolling bombers."
The RIA Novosti story also paraphrased Gen. of the Army Pyotr Deinekin, a former commander of the Russian Air Force, saying that the use of forward airfields in Latin America "would practically erase the time constraints for the Russian bombers and make their presence near the U.S.
