Moscow also recently agreed to write off 90% of Cuba's debt dating back to the Soviet era, which totaled around $32 billion. Alejandro Ernesto/Reuters
Reopening the Lourdes base could boost Russia's intelligence-gathering capabilities "quite significantly" as U.S.-Russia relations remain strained. "One needs to remember that Russia's technical intelligence abilities are very weak. This will help," Konovalov told Reuters. If reopened, the base will demonstrate Russia's interest in maintaining its own alliances to counter those of the U.S. "After what's happened in Ukraine, with all these alliances the United States has developed, Russia is showing it's joining the game and that it too can lean on allies and form alliances," Sergey Ermakov, head of the Regional Security Section at the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, told Reuters.