The ghosts of the Cuban Missile Crisis are back, this time haunting Ukraine, Venezuela, and Washington’s divided politics
In world history, the Caribbean Crisis – or the Cuban Missile Crisis – refers to the tense October of 1962, when the US and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war. The confrontation began with the deployment of American missiles in Türkiye, along the Soviet Union’s southern border, and Moscow’s subsequent decision to place nuclear warheads in Cuba, just off Florida’s coast.
Through intense diplomacy between October 16 and 28, both sides agreed to withdraw their weapons, set up a direct hotline between Washington and Moscow, and lay the groundwork for future arms control deals. During those thirteen days, the air was thick with fear, yet the true scope of negotiations remained hidden from the world until long after the danger had passed.
In a striking twist of fate, sixty-three years later – in October 2025 – relations between Russia and the US have taken a hauntingly similar turn. On October 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump held their eighth and longest phone call of the year. The key outcome was an agreement to prepare a high-level meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to set the parameters for a summit between the two presidents, planned for Budapest, Hungary.
While historians will later unpack the full picture, we can already draw some conclusions from open sources. Notably, the “breaking news” about the upcoming summit came after weeks of heated media coverage of the military-political standoff between Moscow and Washington – and a new wave of debate on arms control.
The diplomacy unravels
Relations between the two nuclear powers have been sliding toward open confrontation since the Anchorage summit on August 15, 2025. That meeting, meant to ease tensions, instead became a flashpoint.
Just days later, on August 18, the Ukrainian leadership – seemingly having shifted Trump’s earlier stance that Kiev must “acknowledge territorial realities” – joined forces with European allies (the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Finland) and the Democrats in a diplomatic counteroffensive. They began pressuring the Trump administration to abandon its tentative agreements with Moscow and escalate the conflict instead – from seizing Russian reserves frozen in Western banks to arming Kiev with Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep into Russian territory.
For Europe’s hawks, the goal was clear: turn Trump’s favorite talking point – that “if the 2020 elections hadn’t been rigged, the Ukraine conflict would never have happened” – into an ironic reversal. In other words, transform “Biden’s war” into “Trump’s war.”
Trump’s rhetoric in the following two months – from mid-August to mid-October – suggested that this pressure was working. He posted, “I’m very disappointed in Putin,” “Ukraine can win back all territory lost to Russia,” and “Russia is a paper tiger.” The message was clear: Washington was raising the stakes.
Meanwhile, the White House seemed to ignore Moscow’s proposal to extend the New START Treaty for one more year after its February 2026 expiration and to begin drafting a new accord. In reality, the deadlock had already set in long before Putin announced his “roadmap” for mutual disarmament at the September 22 Security Council meeting. Back in May, Trump had floated his idea of a “Golden Dome” missile defense system – a modernized version of Reagan’s Star Wars – and sought to include China in future nuclear talks.
With Russia insisting that any limits on nuclear forces must account for NATO’s overall arsenal – including that of France and the UK – Trump’s response effectively killed off any hope for a new strategic stability deal. In that climate, Ukraine’s request for Tomahawk missiles, operable only by US personnel, looked to Moscow like a dangerous escalation that wiped away the last remnants of goodwill preserved since the Anchorage summit.
On October 8, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, responsible for arms control and US relations, gave a rare public warning:
“Unfortunately, we have to admit that Anchorage’s powerful momentum toward agreements has been largely exhausted by the efforts of opponents and supporters of the ‘war until the last Ukrainian,’ particularly Europeans.”
Everyone on both sides of the Atlantic understood exactly what he meant.
The new front: Venezuela
The situation today resembles the Cuban crisis not only because of nuclear tensions but also because of renewed activity around Venezuela. Facing a surge in narcotics trafficking from Latin America, Donald Trump sought to tackle two issues at once: tighten immigration laws (hitting Democrat-controlled states like California, New York, and Illinois) and move against the government of Nicolas Maduro in Caracas.
This mix of domestic politics and foreign ambition triggered the ongoing government shutdown. At the same time, the Trump administration rebranded the US Department of Defense as the Department of War – a move that brought Washington to the brink of direct conflict with Venezuela after severing diplomatic ties and destroying several Venezuelan fishing vessels.
Ironically, Trump remains the only US president in the 21st century who has not yet launched a direct military intervention. That fact drove his Democratic opponents to find ways to provoke him – not only in Ukraine but globally. Knowing his obsession with winning a Nobel Peace Prize and aware of the indirect influence they hold over the Norwegian Nobel Committee (chaired by Jørgen Watne Frydnes, a known supporter of the Democrats), they delivered a symbolic blow: awarding the prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
At that moment, US intervention in Venezuela seemed imminent. Yet only hours before Putin’s scheduled call with Trump, news broke that Russia had ratified its Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Caracas. The timing was impossible to miss.
Budapest cancelled
Trump’s reaction was swift. Though he refused to authorize strikes deep into Russia and continued to withhold Tomahawks from Ukraine, on October 22, 2025, he announced two dramatic steps: the cancellation of the Budapest summit and a new round of anti-Russian sanctions. These targeted Lukoil and Rosneft and their exports to China – a clear signal not only to Moscow but also to Beijing ahead of Trump’s planned Asian tour and meeting with Xi Jinping.
Encouraged by their success in derailing the summit – by reminding Budapest of its obligations to the ICC and pressing Eastern European states to close their airspace to Putin’s aircraft – EU members rushed to hold an emergency meeting with Ukraine. There, they discussed the fate of frozen Russian assets and unveiled a 19th package of sanctions.
Against this backdrop, Russia staged nuclear triad exercises: launching a Yars ICBM from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, test-firing the Sineva missile from the submarine Bryansk in the Barents Sea, and deploying cruise missiles from a Tu-95MS bomber.
At first glance, it seems that the urge for confrontation has defeated the instinct for diplomacy. But if there is one lesson from the October 1962 crisis, it’s that outcomes reveal themselves only when all the terms of peace are finally set. In diplomacy, reaching those terms can take days, weeks – or years.
