Destination: Unknown. The Russian nuclear-powered submarine K-561 Kazan is still navigating the Caribbean Sea after it slipped into Havana harbour moorings.
The Yasen-class cruise missile underwater vessel is part of a naval group composed of the Frigate Gorshkov, carrying the hypersonic anti-ship missile Zircon, a tug and an auxiliary tanker ship.
According to Western military sources, the Saint-Andrew bannered ships could be cruising to Venezuela, another Russian-leaning country in the Americas.
Since the start of its travel in the Atlantic Ocean, the Russian naval group has been closely monitored by the Western navies, especially the US one.
The presence of Russian attack military units in international waters off the Florida coast has raised the alert for the US and its allies, like Canada.
For the US and Canadian militaries, the naval group poses some strategic concerns about the projection and capacity of the Russian military fleet.
The trip is not a current threat. It is an objective fact. Both the Kazan submarine and the Gorshkov frigate carry missiles "without nuclear warheads," as Cuba openly declared last week.
The group broke the Atlantic waves under the spotlight of the Russian media and the US Navy anti-submarine reconnaissance systems.
It is not the first time since the end of the Soviet Union that Russian war vessels have docked in Cuba.
The Pentagon downplayed the alerts and the comparisons with Cuba's Soviet-US missile crisis of 1962.
"These are routine naval visits that we've seen under different administrations," a Pentagon spokesperson said.
Nevertheless, the US National Security Council seems to slightly differ from the point of view of the Defence Department. In the eyes of the Security Council, the presence of nuclear-powered submarines in US sovereign waters must be put into a wider perspective concerning the Russian maritime strategy.
The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan pointed out that ”this time, there’s a different element in the deployment of Russian warships to Cuba. For the first time, they included a nuclear submarine, the Yasen-class Kazan".
US security agencies seem more concerned by the submarine than the frigate, despite the surface warship also being heavily armed.
Gorshkov carried for the first time the Mach 8-9 hypersonic anti-ship missile Zircon.
Looking at the war in Ukraine, military analysts say that the Russian Navy's performance in the Black Sea has been inadequate after the high number of naval unit losses it suffered.
Nevertheless, the Russian nuclear-powered submarines (especially the last generation ones) are still an enigma for most Western analysts.
Russian underwater warfare could be the trump card of an apparently depleted Navy.
What is the Yasen-M class submarine?
According to the 'National Interest International Relations Conservative Review' from the US, the Yasen class vessels rank among the top five attack submarines in the world with Russia's Sierra II Class (Kondor), the UK's Astute-class, and the US's Virginia-class and Seawolf-class.
The Yasem-M submarines, like the Kazan, are the most recent modification (made in 2021) of the Yasen class of 2009.
The Yasen class has been developed from a project dating back to the last days of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, it is regarded by NATO's analysts as a formidable underwater deterrence-defence vessel.
A report from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) dating back to 2021 underlines that the characteristics of the Kazan-like submarines represent an evolution to the "nuclear-guided missile submarines (SSGNs), which is likely indicative of a shift in the way that Russian submarines will contribute to future campaigns. Long-range strike missions appear to be superseding sea lines of communication (SLOC) interdiction as a primary task".
It means a switch from hunt-killing missions against ships and convoys to the capacity to hit inland targets from the ocean with hyper-sonic cruise missiles.
Kazan is quite a difficult catch for any potential hunter and a real threat in case of conflict says Dr Sidharth Kaushal from RUSI:
"Yasen is a concern for two reasons. First, its vulnerability to passive detection is considerably lower than that of older Russian boats, making it comparable to Western submarines. In previous years, the submarine has eluded detection for extended periods. It is also equipped with vertical launch cells for cruise missiles, meaning that if it eludes tracking it could pose a long-range strike threat to critical military infrastructure with missiles such as the 3M-14 Kalibr and the 3M22 Zircon. These capabilities also enable them to outrange some of the surface vessels which may be tasked with tracking them".
NATO's Anti-Submarine Warfare
The trip to the warm Caribbean waters of the Northern fleet, jewel of the Russian Navy, has offered Moscow a diplomatic show-off in the so-called "Global South" and an opportunity for the US to monitor and study the Yasen-M class.
"NATO has a credible anti-submarine warfare system and Russia has a more limited force than it did in the Cold War. Russian attack submarines are also needed for tasks such as the defence of Russia’s submarine ballistic missile fleet, which limits the number of submarines that can be used for offensive functions," says Dr Kaushal.
Nevertheless, antisubmarine warfare has huge costs in terms of resources in case of military escalation.
"This will likely necessitate a change in how NATO manages the anti-submarine warfare challenge in the High North, given that a strategy of barrier defence at the Greenland–Iceland–UK (GIUP) gap may do little to impact Russian submarines, which may have little need to traverse this barrier in order to achieve their operational ends," the RUSI report.
The Russian fleet suffered heavy setbacks in the Black Sea in the last two years of the Ukrainian war.
Two diesel-powered submarines were hit and sunk in Sevastopol Bay. According to many war analysts, this is evidence that Russian maritime power has been overestimated.
Nevertheless: "Storm Shadow (anti-ship missile) attack in Sevastopol was an embarrassment for the Russian navy, the fact that it happened in port means that this did not prove much about Russian submarine capabilities one way or another," concludes Dr Kaushal, arguing that the actual threat of a submarine fleet can only be tested when they are in action.
