War in Ukraine: Cubans incorporated into the Russian army?
HAVANA, Sept. 5th Cuban authorities detected a trafficking network that operates from Russia to recruit Cubans to participate “in war operations in Ukraine” and initiated criminal proceedings against people involved in this trafficking.
The Ministry of the Interior “is working on the neutralization and dismantling of a human trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” announced the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez assured that the island’s government “acts with the force of the law” against these operations, in a message on his account on the X social network, formerly Twitter, the AFP news agency replied.
Russia and Cuba strengthened their relations in political and diplomatic terms last year, and representatives of the Government of Vladimir Putin expressed their willingness to support the island
The competent authorities initiated “criminal proceedings against people involved in these activities,” the agency added in the text.
The Foreign Ministry clarified that Cuba is not part of the armed conflict in Ukraine and that it will act vigorously against those who participate in any form of human trafficking from its territory for the purpose of recruitment or “mercenarism” so that its citizens take up arms against any country.
The case of two teenagers
Last Friday, the Miami newspaper América TeVe published testimonies of two teenagers who were in Cuba when they were recruited under deceit by people who contacted them via Facebook to work as masons on construction sites in Ukraine alongside the Russian Army.
“Please help us, try to get us out of here as quickly as possible because we are afraid,” says one of the 19-year-olds in a video posted by the newspaper on his website.
“We can’t sleep because we don’t know if at any moment they can come in to do something to us,” said another of the young people, from a bus in which they were transferred from Ukraine with Russian soldiers to the Russian city of Riazan.
They also denounced having been beaten.
This medium presented the anonymous audio testimony of another Cuban who said he had also signed a contract of this type, who traveled from Cuba to Russia and who was able to see 18 other compatriots in the same situation.
A fourth person said he signed the agreement while living in Russia. “I am one more Cuban who is here under contract with the Russian armed forces,” the man told América TeVe under anonymity.
He added that, like the others, he enlisted to legalize his situation in Russia and said he was satisfied with the conditions.
The Foreign Ministry, which categorically rejected any complicity in these actions, warned that “enemies of Cuba promote distorted information that seeks to tarnish the image of the country.”
The Foreign Ministry clarified that Cuba is not part of the war in Ukraine and that it will act vigorously against those who participate in any form of human trafficking from its territory
Russia and Cuba last year strengthened their relations in political and diplomatic terms, and representatives of the Government of Vladimir Putin expressed their willingness to support the island in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the implosion of the Soviet bloc in 1991.
At the end of 2022, President Miguel Díaz-Canel met with Putin in Moscow and this year, delegations of businessmen and officials visited both countries.
One of these tours was carried out in June by the Cuban Defense Minister, Álvaro López Miera, who was received by his Russian counterpart, Serguei Shoigu.
“Russia plans to jointly develop with Cuba a series of projects in the technical-military field,” Shoigu told López Miera in their talks at the Defense Ministry, according to what the official Granma newspaper published at the time.
