Nicaragua looks to Russia in bid to add military muscle.
| Autor | Witte-Lebhar, Benjamin |
President Daniel Ortega's deepening military ties with Russia, whose Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu made a personal visit to Managua last month, have raised eyebrows and more than a few questions, particularly in nearby countries involved in ongoing boundary disputes with Nicaragua and in the US, which would prefer Russia stay clear of the Caribbean basin.
Shoygu met with Ortega in mid-February as part of a three-nation tour that also involved stops in Havana, Cuba, and Caracas, Venezuela. The meeting reportedly produced an agreement allowing Russian naval vessels easier access to Nicaraguan ports. They also agreed on a joint training program that will allow an increased number of Nicaraguan officers to attend Russian military academies.
The meeting came just hours after a top Nicaraguan Army official, Maj. Gen. Adolfo Zepeda, confirmed claims that Nicaragua is interested in buying a fleet of Russian-made fighter jets. Observers presume the jets in question to be MiG-29s, combat fighters that cost a reported US$29 million each. Zepeda said the planes would be for "clearly defensive" reasons and used "to prevent the traffic of planes transporting drugs
in our airspace."
Russia previously promised to supply Nicaraguan police with military helicopters, urban assault vehicles, and firearms, also for use stopping drug traffickers, The Nicaragua Dispatch, an English-language news site, reported last year.
Reports have also surfaced that Nicaragua is procuring Russian-made patrol boats.
Speaking last April to a group of Army personnel, President Ortega staunchly defended his dealings with Russia, saying Nicaragua has every right to arm itself. "What's so strange about developing relations with the Russian Federation with the same intensity and the same strength as the relations we've developed with the US military?" he said. "Who can complain about that? Is [the US] offering to equip our Army with modern weapons? We all know that the arms we have are decades old already."
That same week, lawmakers in Moscow made it public they were working on a bill to set up a satellite navigation monitoring station in Nicaragua. The station would be part of the GLONASS system, Russia's version of the US-designed Global Positioning System (GPS). Three months later, during a surprise July 12 stopover in Managua by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ortega personally approved the plan, according to Nicolai Vladimir, Russia's ambassador in Nicaragua (NotiSur, Aug. 1...
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