MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian navy says its warships will visit Cuba for the first time since the Soviet era.

The navy says a squadron that has been on a lengthy visit to Latin America will put in at Havana on Friday for a five-day stay.

Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo says it will be the first visit by Russian warships to the Communist-led island just 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the United States since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

The nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great and the destroyer Admiral Chabanenko arrived in the Caribbean last month in a deployment also unprecedented since Soviet times. The voyage is widely seen as a response to the United States' use of warships to deliver aid to Russia's neighbor Georgia after their war in August.

Asked about a Russian warship transiting the Panama Canal earlier this month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - who saw the ship while crossing the canal last week - told The Associated Press: "I guess they're on R&R. It's fine."

The Pentagon, while puzzled by the Russians' actions, also is taking a ho-hum attitude. The U.S. military commander for the region, Adm. James Stavridis, head of the U.S. Southern Command, said that from his vantage point, there is no reason to be concerned about the Russian naval activity.

"They pose no military threat to the U.S.," Stavridis said in an e-mail to the AP on Tuesday.

It was the first such passage by a Russian or Soviet warship since World War II.

There is no suggestion of a military confrontation, but the Russian moves are notable in part because they appear to reflect an effort by Moscow to flex some muscle in America's backyard in response to Washington's support for the former Soviet republic of Georgia and plans for a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Russians were unhappy with a U.S. decision to send a state-of-the-art warship into the Black Sea as part of an American humanitarian aid mission for Georgia in the aftermath of last August's war with Russia. The Russians also are angry about the Bush administration's push to make Georgia and Ukraine members of the NATO military alliance.

Under the gaze of the U.S. Southern Command, Russian ships this fall held joint exercises with the navy of Venezuela, whose president, Hugo Chavez, is a fierce U.S. critic.