The NGO Prisoners Defenders published a report on Tuesday 12th about Cuba’s involvement in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. According to the organization, hundreds of Cuban soldiers were sent to war on the orders of the dictatorship of Miguel DíazCanel (pictured with Russian President Vladimir Putin).
The document brings the conclusions of Ukrainian researchers who analyzed the reports and passports of 199 Cubans who went to the battlefield:
1. The vast majority arrived on Russian planes flying a new direct route between Varadero, near Havana, and Moscow. The route was created in July 2023 by the Cuban and Russian regimes, while all other airlines operating in Cuba have canceled their routes because there are no tourists to fill their planes.
two. All were recruited by Cuban and Russian personnel. who work in full cooperation. On the Cuban side, Colonel Mónica Milián Gómez, current military attaché in Moscow and daughter of the late Major General Roberto Milián Vega, who fought alongside Raúl Castro in the revolution, was responsible for everything.
3. The government facilitated the issuance of passports to these soldiers. A high percentage of recruits received accommodation and other forms of assistance to obtain their passports in Havana a few days before their trip to Russia.
4. The dictatorship sent people who wanted to resist outside the communist island and took part in the July 11, 2021 protests against the regime. They were promised permanent residence in Russia. They have already been referred to as “gusanos” (worms) and “deserters” and more recently have been referred to as “mercenaries” by the regime. The aim is to maintain internal social control. “That means the Cuban government will not care at all about their deaths,” the report said.
5. The immigration authorities in Cuba, once it is confirmed that the traveler is traveling to Russia as a mercenary of the Russian army, refuse to stamp the exit passport Therefore, there is no record of the departure date, as is the case with 100% of Cuban citizens traveling abroad. It would be a way to hide the purpose of the trip.
6. Several of them, such as Andorf Velázquez García and Alex Vegas Díaz, both 19 years old and arrested by the Russian army for refusing to fight, reported that they were told this They would be entrusted with civilian construction tasks for the Russian army. However, the Cubans are sent to the front.
7. At least twenty of them entered through Belarus, a country where the Cuban dictatorship says it has sent troops for military training.
According to Prisoners Defenders, “The Cuban regime occupied Aeroflot planes, which since July have been flying a route newly created by both governments, with hundreds of Cubans, between 500 and 1,000, who are in Ukraine and Russia and have joined the war.” .
After the first news of Cuban soldiers in Ukraine, the dictatorship responded by saying it had discovered a Russian “human trafficking network.” However, the evidence shows that it is not possible to free the dictatorship from sending young Cubans into the conflict.