Cuba reveals illegal Russian recruitment network for Cubans in Ukraine

avana (AFP) – The Cuban government announced that it had identified a Russian trafficking network aimed at recruiting Cubans to take part in military operations in Ukraine and that it had initiated criminal prosecutions against the people involved.

The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the Ministry of the Interior is working to disable and dismantle the human trafficking network that operates from Russia to include Cuban citizens living in it and even some Cubans in the armed forces participating in military operations in Ukraine.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodrigues confirmed as he wrote on X platform that the Cuban government is acting according to the law to confront these operations.

The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated that it had initiated criminal prosecutions against persons involved in these activities, without giving any further detail, and stressed Cuba’s categorical rejection of the mercenary activity, noting that Cuba doesn’t participate in the Ukraine war.

Last Friday, the Miami-based newspaper, America TV, published testimonies of two teenagers who said they had been lured through Facebook to work in construction in Ukraine with the Russian army.

“Help us, please, try to get us out of here as soon as possible, because we are afraid,” one of them, 19, said in a vide posted on the newspaper’s website.

The two young men sent the message from a bus in which they were transporting from Ukraine, accompanied by Russian military personnel, towards Ryazan, southeast of Moscow.

The young man added, “We cannot sleep, as they may enter us at any time to carry out a task”.

A second man told the newspaper, on condition of anonymity, “I am Cuban among other Cubans who are here under a contract with the Russian Armed Forces,” stressing that he joined the army to legalize his stay in Russia.

Moscow and Havana have strengthened their diplomatic relations since last year.

At the end of 2022, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, and delegations including businessmen and political representatives went to the two countries.

Last June, Cuban Defense Minister Alvaro Lopez Miera also met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu.