A public discussion arose when Daniel Ortega signed a decree authorizing the entry of a limited number of Russian troops in Nicaragua. The decree also authorized the entry of US troops and troops from other nations. A news anchor on Russian State Television then suggested Nicaragua could be a base for Russian missiles, if the US uses Ukraine for that purpose. This interview of the top security analyst in Nicaragua, Roberto Cajina, provides some important perspective to the discussion which can be easily missed in the current context.
Roberto Cajina: “Intelligence information from the Russian satellite base goes directly to Moscow”
By Editors of Confidencial, June 16, 2022
Defense consultant discards Russian military escalation but calls attention to the secrecy about the installations in Nejapa and Las Colinas.
The latest chapter in the polemics about the entry of Russian troops to Nicaragua for military exercises for humanitarian purposes was settled with the ratification this Tuesday June 14 in the National Assembly, controlled by the regime, of the decree issued by Daniel Ortega, authorizing the arrival of those military troops, along with others from Venezuela, Cuba, the United States and Central America.
The polemics exploded after the propaganda of the Government of Vladimir Putin on Russian state television used Ortega´s decree on the entry of military troops from his country in Nicaragua, to send a threatening message to the United States. “If American military systems can be close to Moscow from the territory of Ukraine, it is time that Russia deploy something powerful closer to a US city,” said the official Russian television host, Olga Skabeeva.
Roberto Cajina, a civilian consultant on security and defense issues, interviewed on the program Esta Nocheby Carlos Fernando Chamorro, rejected that the decree implies an escalation of the Russian military presence in Nicaragua, or a threat for the United States.
Cajina, nevertheless, highlighted the high level of secrecy existing in the military relations between the Kremlin and the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, which includes the lack of information about the results of those exercises and the functioning of the Russian satellite base which operates in Nejapa and the police training center in Las Colinas.
How do you interpret the reaction of the United States, which indicated that the entry of Russian troops was a provocation, even though at the same time they recognized that they are routine operations, and the reaction of Costa Rica, saying that they are concerned?
The two are overblown and also reflect something of ignorance. I might understand it in the case of the president of Costa Rica, but in the case of the United States which has updated intelligence information; they know that these decrees about the entry of foreign troops and the departure of national troops outside of Nicaragua are routine procedures, as established by article 92 of the Constitution of Nicaragua. The president of the Republic requests it and the National Aseembly ratifies it. In fact, it does not function exactly in that way, because the person who does the planning for the entry and departure of troops is the Army, which does not have legislative attributions, who passes it to the Executive and the Executive passes it to the National Assembly.
There is a declaration from the spokesperson from the Foreign Ministry of Russia saying that this is something routine. Is this a contradiction to what the official propaganda said?
At least if it is not a contradiction, it is a clarification.
The decree dedicates at least four specific points to the cooperation of Russian troops, one about the United States and one about the other countries. Why that difference?
It is noteworthy that when it talks about amounts, 80 on one hand, 50 on the other and I believe 50 on another, they are rotating in nature, that is alternating. The 50, 80 and 50 soldiers are not going to be there all the time and at the same time. In fact, there is a limitation in the decree and the planning, which is that it does not establish the period of time that those soldiers and those military means are going to be there.
But if these operations are routine, are their results known? Is there some supervision of the Army or accountability for these exercises?
No. In fact, there never has been. The last entry approved was in December 2021. Nothing is known about the results of the exercises, of the cooperation that happened in that time. The only thing that has been said is that foreign troops are going to enter to do certain missions, but the results are not known. In the Annual Report of the Army the only thing that it says is the reference to the entry of the troops and the exercises in which they participated.
One of the specific missions is the participation of the Russian naval force in operations against drug trafficking. Do the Russians have some special expertise on this type of operations in Central America, in the Caribbean or in America?
No. In the final analysis the only thing that they can provide is military technical assistance to the Naval Forces, but they have no real information about, for example, how the cartels function, what their routes are. To show a big difference, the Southern Command of the US Armed Forces has a force in Florida that daily watches suspicious flight paths, ocean shipments and surface shipments. The Russians do not have this, but they do have or can have a certain amount of experience in military operations on the open sea.
If this is a war of words deployed by Russian television, it would seem, nevertheless, that the Army of Nicaragua is saying, we have relations with different armies, but there is a special privileged relationship with the Russian Army…
That could be interpreted because of the amount of references that there are, but in fact there has always been this presence of Russian military forces in the different times that they have come into Nicaragua authorized by the National Assembly.
The satellite base controlled by Moscow
On the slopes of the Nejapa laguna there is a Glosnass satellite base managed by the Russians. Is it known what this base does, whether it work on intelligence tasks?
In the agreement that was signed with the Russian organization that is responsible for this mission, it was established that Nicaraguan technicians would be sent to Russia to be trained in the management of the equipment of that base. In fact, no one has gone, and what is known is that the base was built by Russian personnel and is managed by Russian personnel. It is said that the base provides information about climate change, the environment or natural disasters. But there has never been officially on the part of the Government of Nicaragua information or a recognition of the information that has been received on the part of the people who run that base. I do not know whether they have a relationship with INETER to see about the climate. What is clear is that what this base does is gather information which it receives from 24 satellites that pass over it. Apart from the fact that it might have information about the climate, it must also gather intelligence information. That information is not known neither by the Army nor the Government of Nicaragua. That information passes directly to Moscow.
Can it be deduced that that base can also be used for information or spying tasks from Nicaragua, used by Russia on other countries?
Yes, of course. But that information is gathered here, transferred to Moscow. There the intelligence bodies receive that information, process it, analyze it and decide what they are going to do with it.
Can that same base be used for the services of Nicaraguan intelligence for another type of task in Nicaragua?
In principle I do not think so, because of the low level of technological development of the Nicaraguan Army. What I do not have information about is whether there is some relationship between the staff of the base and the staff of the Army.
In addition to that base in Nejapa, there is a police training center focused on the fight against drug-trafficking, which is installed in Las Colinas. Is it known what are the results of that center?
Very little information. For example, a lot of police who have been trained, police from other countries of Central America who have been trained in that center. Like the base in Nejapa, it was built by Russian workers and is managed by Russians. I do not have information about how it functions. It is possible that the base in Las Colinas might have a relationship with the base in Nejapa in terms of intelligence information exchanges.
If the decree on the entry of troops does not include installing military bases, does it imply a growth in the Russian military presence in Nicaragua?
No, we are talking about 180 Russian soldiers with well -defined specific missions in the decree. What the president of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chávez and the US official, Brian Nichols, said was a first reaction to something about which they had no exact knowledge. It is not a military presence of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 Russian soldiers and equipment. It is a small quantity and for a limited time. I think that it should be put in its correct dimension. Now I want to point out that the reaction that was provoked by this announcement had never been provoked before, not even within the framework of the 2018 crisis. In December last year a similar decree was issued and there was no reaction. Why? Because Russia had not invaded Ukraine and to some extent because the Summit of the Americas was not being celebrated.
So, can you interpret Russian propaganda?
I think that more than a provocation as such, it was a message to Washington to some extent. Not the decree, but what the television anchor from Russian State television said. In reality it is not a message to Nicaragua. I believe that the Nicaraguan authorities and the Army itself should not have been surprised, because by the right of reciprocity and for stable diplomatic relations, they should have informed the Government of Nicaragua, but they did not inform the Government of Nicaragua, nor the Army. I think that they, like the US officials and President Chávez himself, were surprised.
If the decree is routine, we should then give more attention to the other elements of the Russian presence in Nicaragua, on security matters. You have said that we do not know anything about what is being done in those two large deployments in Nejapa and Las Colinas…
Yes, you should pay attention, but how do you break the wall of silence that these two installations have? It is difficult, impossible. In addition, there is one thing that is real. There are no Nicaraguan technicians working in the satellite control based in Nejapa, nor are there Nicaraguan instructors in the police training center in Las Colinas. There is no information about how they function. Since that was founded, I have practically read only once information referring to that center and it was about the number of police trained. Now the training has to be strictly police in nature, because intelligence training, Russia does not have intelligence information about organized crime and drug trafficking in Central America, like the DEA and other agencies of the US government have.