FILE PHOTO OF RUSSIAN MISSILE IN CUBA., 1991-01-07 (photo)

Russian President Vladimir Putin will fly into Havana December 13, 2000 for a highly symbolic visit to Moscow's former Cold War ally, Cuba, whose own leader President Fidel Castro is defiantly maintaining communism on his island. The former KGB head's visit to the Caribbean nation just 90 miles off the United States aims to breathe new life into political and economic ties with Havana that disintegrated along with the old Soviet Union more than a decade ago. The trip is the first by a post-Soviet Russian leader to Latin America since Mikhail Gorbachev came to Cuba in 1989. A Russian missile is shown in this January 7, 1991 file photo in Cuba. The missile was disactivated after the 1962 Missile Crisis, then kept on show in Cuba, until into the 1990s. AC/JP/TB