Canadian warship sharing an anchorage with Russian vessels in Cuba

The Royal Canadian Navy now finds itself in the unusual position of both shadowing Russian warships as a threat in the Caribbean and sharing an anchorage with them as a guest in the port of Havana — because Canada accepted an invitation to send a patrol ship to Cuba while the Russian navy is in town.

And it's not clear just who in government or the military knew about the invitation from Cuba. The Caribbean nation has been a full-throated supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine and Cubans have been fighting alongside Russian soldiers in that country.

For several days, the frigate HMCS Ville de Quebec has been tasked with shadowing the Russian ships, which conducted missile exercises during their Atlantic crossing using Moscow's new Zircon hypersonic missiles. The Ville de Quebec is part of a three-ship group that tracked the Russians, along with the U.S. destroyer USS Truxton and U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGS Stone.

A Canadian CP-140 surveillance plane flying out of Jacksonville, Florida is also keeping a close eye on the Russians. The destroyer USS Donald Cook also appears to have joined the mission in the Caribbean, in addition to U.S. naval surveillance aircraft.

And yet, on Friday Canada's Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessel HMCS Margaret Brooke sailed into Havana as a guest of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, just hours after the Russian flotilla docked in the same harbour.

Cuba invited the Canadians to Havana to celebrate «the long-standing bilateral relationship between Canada and Cuba,» according to a tweet by Canadian Joint Operations Command.

No Canadian naval vessel had visited Cuba for more than 50 years until Justin Trudeau came to power at the end of 2015.

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