Havana, Cuba CNN —As a series of welcoming cannon blasts rang out from a nearby colonial fort, the Russian navy’s training class ship Perekop sailed into Havana on Tuesday. “We are condemning, we are rejecting, the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Russian-controlled network, RT, in a rare interview in May. He also blasted US economic sanctions on Russia, while heralding Russian “projects of cooperation and collaboration” under development in Cuba. But following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its main trading partner and entered a deep economic depression. Despite the high cost of the war in Ukraine and economic sanctions, Russian officials say they are committed to Cuba.

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