The timing of this (the US election, Western arms being used in Russian territory near Kharkiv, etc) is significant. I wonder if Russia may plan something provocative such a weapons deployment in addition–I could do without a Cuba Missile Crisis this Summer.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-naval-air-exercises-caribbean/
The U.S. expects Russia to begin air and naval exercises in the Caribbean in the coming weeks, according to a U.S. official.
The exercises, which will involve Russian warships and long-range bombers, will be the first simultaneous air and naval maneuvers Russia has conducted in the Caribbean since 2019. The U.S. is interpreting them as a response to American support for Ukraine and stepped-up U.S. exercises with NATO allies.
https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/1d9xumz/russia_is_expected_to_begin_naval_air_exercises/
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Russian missiles in Cuba were a big deal at the time because the Soviets didn’t yet have true intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities. If nuclear war happened their only ability to hit the US would be bombers, which at least some would be shot down. So missiles in Cuba gave the Soviets new capabilities to destroy the continental US, which they didn’t really have before.
Today Russia probably has enough nuclear subs patrolling the seas to enforce MAD on their own, on top of hundreds of ICBMs. Nukes in Cuba wouldn’t expand Russia’s nuclear capabilities. It would just be an obvious provocation that would lead to international condemnation.
The Carribean, or tbh pretty much anywhere in the globe besides maybe the coast of China, is so dominated by the US navy that whatever exercises Russia does are irrelevant.