Cam Ranh Bay and a new phase in Moscow-Hanoi ties

Six Russian submarines in dock a reminder of Cold War-era alliance

- Nga Pham

Moscow and Hanoi are once again drawing closer, after a brief cooling of ties following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A flurry of high-level visits in recent years including Russian President Vladimir Putin's stop in Hanoi in June 2024 and Vietnamese Communist Party chief To Lam's trip to Moscow in May 2025 has reaffirmed a decades-old partnership with its highs and lows, one that even the Ukraine war could not fully derail.

For Vietnam, Russia remains an old friend and a useful balancer. For Moscow, Hanoi remains its most important partner in Southeast Asia.

This longstanding and complex bond is most visible in Cam Ranh Bay, a jewel on Vietnam's coastline that is still instrumental in shaping Russia-Vietnam ties today.

Just outside the bay's new international airport, a modest hilltop memorial offers a mute reminder of Moscow's once-vast military presence here.

Half-hidden by tropical greenery and largely ignored by passing vehicles whizzing by on the sun-scorched highway connecting Cam Ranh Peninsula in central Vietnam to the beaches of Nha Trang 30km away stands the Russia-Vietnam Friendship Memorial, which was completed in 2009.

The 21m monument honours 44 Soviet and Russian servicemen who never made it home, along with 176 Vietnamese personnel who died in the line of duty in Khanh Hoa region, in the peacetime years after the Vietnam War (1955-1975).

Obscure though it may be, the monument nevertheless signals the depth of Moscow's footprint in this bay.

FROM U.S. STRONGHOLD TO SOVIET LIFELINE

Cam Ranh Bay, located in Khanh Hoa province and less than 300km from Ho Chi Minh City, is one of the finest deep-water ports in Asia.

The US used it as a major naval and air hub during the Vietnam War. But in 1979, as relations between Vietnam and China sharply deteriorated, Hanoi turned to its other major wartime ally: the Soviet Union, as it was known before its dissolution in 1991.