Russian Chancellor Sergei Lavrov criticized this Monday the 19th the “hegemony” and “dominance” that the United States and other Western nations are trying to impose on the international order, as he began in Cuba a tour of Latin America, visits to Brazil and Brazil will include Venezuela.
The United States and other Western countries “want to maintain their dominance and hegemony” and to this end resort to means that “do not include diplomacy, but blackmail, ultimatums, threats, the use of brute military force and sanctions,” the said Head of Russian diplomacy at a meeting in Havana with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodríguez.
Cuba “knows firsthand what illegal pressure is, a total embargo that only the United States defends as a legitimate course of action,” he added, according to his speech published in Russian on the Moscow Foreign Ministry website.
After a relaxation during the administration of Barack Obama (20092017), Donald Trump tightened the embargo that Washington had maintained against Cuba for more than six decades, which did not change under the leadership of the current American head of state Joe Biden.
The United States and other Western countries tightened their sanctions against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
After the Cuban foreign minister welcomed him as a “close ally,” Lavrov met with President Miguel DíazCanel. “We talked about strengthening bilateral relations on issues of common interest and relevant issues on the international agenda,” the president posted on his account on the social network X.
The Russian official was scheduled to leave Venezuela tomorrow and later travel to Brazil for a meeting with G20 foreign ministers.
This is the Russian minister's second visit to the island in less than a year, following a strong rapprochement since November 2022, when DíazCanel met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
When relations resumed last year, both countries signed several agreements in various areas, leading to frequent visits by senior Russian and Cuban officials.
According to official Russian figures, bilateral trade increased ninefold in 2023 compared to 2022, when trade between Cuba and Russia reached $450 million (2.3 billion reais at the then exchange rate).
This approach comes at a time when Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis in three decades, with product shortages and a spiraling inflation compounded by the structural weaknesses of its economy.
In April, Lavrov thanked Cuba for its “understanding” in the war against Ukraine. While the island maintained a neutral stance and called for a negotiated exit from the conflict, it also refused to condemn the offensive.
Following press reports in September about drug traffickers recruiting Cubans to join the Russian army in the war against Ukraine, Cuba arrested 17 people for the crime of “mercenaryism.” The status of the legal proceedings against the prisoners has not yet been reported.
(With information from AFP).