Russia’s Lavrov needles Biden over Cuban Missile Disaster and Ukraine By Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin’s overseas minister on Sunday needled Joe Biden over Ukraine, saying that he hoped the U.S. President had the knowledge to cope with a worldwide confrontation much like the 1962 Cuban Missile Disaster.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has triggered the largest confrontation between Moscow and the West because the Cuban disaster when the Soviet Union and United States are to thought-about to have come closest to nuclear battle.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy found that Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev had deployed nuclear missiles on Cuba after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion – a U.S.-backed try by Cuban exiles to overthrow communist rule that was thwarted by Cuba – and the U.S. deployment of missiles in Italy and Turkey.

In an interview for a Russian state tv documentary on the missile disaster, International Minister Sergei Lavrov mentioned there have been “similarities” to 1962, largely as a result of Russia was now threatened by Western weapons in Ukraine.

“I hope that in right this moment’s scenario, President Joe Biden may have extra alternatives to know who offers orders and the way,” Lavrov mentioned with a faint smile. “This case may be very disturbing.”

“The distinction is that within the distant 1962, Khrushchev and Kennedy discovered the energy to indicate duty and knowledge, and now we don’t see such readiness on the a part of Washington and its satellites,” Lavrov mentioned.

White Home officers didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark outdoors workplace hours.

On October 27, 1962, the world got here near nuclear battle when a Soviet submarine captain needed to launch a nuclear weapon after the U.S. navy dropped depth prices across the submarine.

Later that day, Kennedy secretly agreed to take away all missiles in Turkey in trade for Khrushchev eradicating all missiles in Cuba. The disaster was subtle, although it grew to become an emblem of the perils of superpower rivalry within the Chilly Battle.

President Vladimir Putin cites the West’s dismissal of Russian issues in regards to the safety of post-Soviet Europe, and specifically the enlargement of the NATO navy alliance eastwards, as one of many causes of the battle.

America and its European allies say Russian issues are overblown and can’t justify the invasion of a former Soviet neighbour whose borders Moscow recognised after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Ukraine says it should combat till it has ejected each final Russian from its territory, casting Russia’s large energy diplomacy as a sham used to distract from an imperial-style land seize that Kyiv says is doomed.

Requested what Russia ought to do now within the present disaster, Lavrov mentioned: “The readiness of Russia, together with President Vladimir Putin, for negotiations stays unchanged.”