​Russia to reopen Cuban mega-base to spy on America

​Russia to reopen Cuban mega-base to spy on America – report
Published time: July 16, 2014 07:51

Moscow and Havana have reportedly reached an agreement on reopening the
SIGINT facility in Lourdes, Cuba - once Russia's largest foreign base of
this kind - which was shut down in 2001 due to financial problems and
under US pressure.

When operational, the facility was manned by thousands of military and
intelligence personnel, whose task was to intercept signals coming from
and to the US territory and to provide communication for the Russian
vessels in the western hemisphere.

Russia considered reopening the Lourdes base since 2004 and has sealed a
deal with Cuba last week during the visit of the Russian President
Vladimir Putin to the island nation, reports Kommersant business daily
citing multiple sources.

"I can say one thing: at last!" one of the sources commented on the news
to the paper, adding that the significance of the move is hard to
overestimate.

The facility in Lourdes, a suburb of Havana located just 250km from
continental USA, was opened in 1967. At the peak of the cold war it was
the largest signal intelligence center Moscow operated in a foreign
nation, with 3,000 personnel manning it.

From the base Russia could intercept communications in most part of the
US including the classified exchanges between space facilities in
Florida and American spacecraft. Raoul Castro, then-Defense Minister of
Cuba, bragged in 1993 that Russia received 75 percent of signal
intelligence on America through Lourdes, with was probably an
overstatement, but not by a large amount.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union the base was downscaled, but
continued operation. After Russia was hit the 1998 economic crisis, it
found it difficult to maintain many of its old assets, including the
Lourdes facility. In Soviet times Cuba hosted it rent-free, but starting
1992 Moscow had to pay Havana hundreds of millions dollars each year in
addition to operational costs to keep the facility open.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and President of the Council of
State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba Raul Castro Ruz during a
press statement at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana. (RIA
Novosti/Aleksey Nikolsky)

An additional blow came in July 2000, when the US House passed the
Russian-American Trust and Cooperation Act, a bill that would ban
Washington from rescheduling or forgiving any Russian debt to the US,
unless the facility in Lourdes is shut down.

Moscow did so in 2001 and also closed its military base in Vietnam's Cam
Ranh, with both moves reported as major steps to address Americans'
concerns. But, in the words of a military source cited by Kommersant,
the US "did not appreciate our gesture of goodwill."

No detail of schedule for the reopening the facility, which currently
hosts a branch of Cuba's University of Information Science, was
immediately available. One of the principle news during Putin's visit to
Havana was Moscow's writing off of the majority of the old Cuban debt to
Russia. The facility is expected to require fewer personnel than it used
to, because modern surveillance equipment can do many functions now
automatically.

With the Lourdes facility operational again, Russia would have a much
better signal intelligence capability in the western hemisphere.

"Returning to Lourdes now is more than justified," military expert
Viktor Murakhovsky, a retired colonel, told Kommersant. "The capability
of the Russian military signal intelligence satellite constellation has
significantly downgraded. With an outpost this close to the US will
allow the military to do their job with little consideration for the
space-based SIGINT echelon."

Source: ​Russia to reopen Cuban mega-base to spy on America – report —
RT News - http://rt.com/news/173092-russia-sigint-facility-cuba/