Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday that an incident with a Florida-registered speedboat off the coast of Cuba was an "aggressive provocation by the United States" aimed at escalating the situation and triggering a conflict, state-owned TASS news agency reported.
Cuban forces killed four exiles and wounded six others who sailed into Cuban waters aboard a speedboat on Wednesday and opened fire on a Cuban patrol, the Cuban Government said at a time of heightened tensions with the United States.
Cuba's Interior Ministry said the group was comprised of anti-government Cubans, some of whom were previously wanted for plotting attacks.
They came from the United States dressed in camouflage and armed with assault rifles, handguns, homemade explosives, ballistic vests and telescopic sights, Cuba said.
"This is an aggressive provocation by the United States aimed at escalating the situation and detonating a conflict," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted as saying by TASS.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Raju Gopalakrishnan)