“Russia’s deployments are part of routine naval activity which pose no direct threat or concern to the United States,” an official from US Northern Command told The Telegraph.
However, the Pentagon sent three guided-missile destroyers and several Boeing P-8 maritime reconnaissance planes to shadow the convoy, as it skirted close to the Florida coast.
US intelligence has assessed that the Gorshkov may be armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles. One of Russia’s most modern weapons, with a range of just over 600 miles, they can hit both land and sea targets.
That means that southern Florida, including Miami – just 230 miles from Havana – is well within range.
But Evan Ellis, a professor at the US Army war college, dismissed flotilla’s presence in Cuba as “pure kabuki theatre”, with symbolic rather than strategic significance, aimed largely at the domestic audience in Russia.