Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Cuba has maintained an ambiguous official stance of "neutrality," if not a veiled partiality towards its ally Vladimir Putin, of whom the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel stated is waging a “dignified war”.
However, the facts indicate otherwise: while the Cuban government deepened its ties with Moscow, both diplomatically and economically and militarily, more than a thousand Cubans were recruited and sent to the front by the Russian army, according to recent revelations from Ukrainian intelligence and the project "I Want to Live".
A detailed crossroads between the monthly peaks of recruitment, the increases in flights between both countries, and the bilateral agreements signed since 2022, reveals an operational and strategic synchrony that contradicts the institutional innocence narrative that the Havana regime attempts to sell to the international community.
Time and events: Lines that intersect
Between June and August 2023, and again between December and February 2024, the recruitment of Cubans reached historic highs: over 800 contracts in total. However, this did not occur in a vacuum.
Shortly before, in May 2023, Díaz-Canel visited Moscow and described the relations with Russia as "strategic". Meanwhile, cooperation agreements were signed in energy, logistics, agriculture, industry, security, and defense.
These events did not occur in isolation. Since January 2022, when Russia had not yet invaded Ukraine, there was already talk of potential Russian military deployments in Cuba and of "strategic cooperation" between the two governments, in the words of the then Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergei Ryabkov.
In February of that same year, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borísov visited Havana, and economic and military collaboration channels were reactivated. In December 2022, Díaz-Canel and Putin agreed to further strengthen energy and industrial cooperation, shaping a tactical alliance that became more rigid as Russia's international isolation grew.
At the end of April 2023, Russian Foreign Minister Serguéi Lavrov stated that military cooperation between Russia and Cuba was progressing successfully.
At the end of a visit to the island, Lavrov stated that “our military cooperation with Cuba is developing successfully, according to the agreements between both parties.” He added: “I understand that the forms of this military cooperation are satisfactory to both the Russian and Cuban sides.”
The timeline shows that each bilateral political approach precedes or coincides with a surge in the recruitment of Cuban mercenaries. And the statistics begin to take on the shape of choreography.
Varadero - Moscow: Flights That Were Not Just for Tourists
In August 2022, Russia and Cuba announced that they would resume in October their direct flights to the tourist destinations of Varadero and Cayo Coco.
Russian aircraft have received permission from Cuban authorities to conduct seven weekly operations with Nordwind Airlines: four at Varadero airport and three at Cayo Coco. By December, the frequency is expected to reach 10 weekly flights.
In February 2023, it was announced that Russian airlines would begin operating routes to Venezuela with stops in Cuba (in April of this year the agreement was canceled). And in May, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko announced the resumption in July of regular flights to Cuba.
For August, Rossiya tripled its Moscow–Varadero flights, without a solid tourist or commercial explanation. That same month, the recruitment chart showed one of its highest peaks.
The testimonies of several mercenaries indicate that most left the country from Varadero or Cayo Coco with "tourist" visas allegedly provided by organized networks, according to revelations by the Ukrainian agency InformNapalm based on data leaked by the hackers from the Cyber Resistance team.
Everything suggests that the air infrastructure between Moscow and Cuba operated as a logistical route for the discreet transfer of individuals to military training bases.
This air corridor was not improvised: it was established through bilateral agreements, reactivated routes, and strategic silences. The airplane became the first step towards the trench.
Faces, shipments, and diplomatic silences
While hundreds of Cubans were signing contracts in Russian, no one in Havana was asking public questions. The avalanche of young people who suddenly decided to head to Russia caused the same silence as that of migrants who set off to take the "volcano route."
The Cuban regime, known for its strict control over movement and close surveillance of traffic at its borders, detected nothing suspicious in the influx of young people seeking their passports who would board a flight to Moscow a month later. However, names started to emerge.
In early September 2023, in statements to the program 'A fondo' on América Radio, a supposed second lieutenant of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) deployed in Ryazan and identified as Lázaro González - there are three people with that name on the "Quiero Vivir" list - claimed he was in charge of 90 Cubans, and that “none left the country illegally”.
The statement was striking: the recruitments were not clandestine, but rather authorized or at least tolerated by the state apparatus.
In mid-September 2023, Colonel Mónica Milián Gómez emerged on the scene, identified by the digital portal represorescubanos.com as “the spokesperson in Russia for the Minister of the Armed Forces, Army Corps General Álvaro López Miera, and the intermediary for strengthening military ties between Havana and Moscow.”
"According to Ukrainian intelligence sources, the recruitment network was coordinated by the Russian government in collaboration with the Cuban army colonel and military attaché at the Cuban embassy in Moscow, Mónica Milián Gómez," the website stated, without citing the alleged sources.
Days earlier, the activist hackers from Cyber Resistance infiltrated the personal email account of a high-ranking Russian official involved in recruiting Cubans for the invasion of Ukraine.
According to the digital outlet The Intercept, which revealed the identity of the Russian officer responsible for recruiting Cubans in the Western Military District, Major Anton Valentinovich Perevozchikov had in his possession 122 scanned passports of Cubans housed at the headquarters of the Russian Armed Forces in the city of Tula.
The hack also revealed that at least five Cubans had entered Russia in July through Belarus, a key ally of Moscow. The entry dates into Russia were after the signing of a military cooperation agreement between high-ranking Cuban and Belarusian officials, focused on “the training of military personnel from the island in the Republic of Belarus”.
The head of the International Military Cooperation Department - Assistant to the Minister of Defense for International Military Cooperation, Valery Revenko, also reported that, on the Cuban side, the meeting was chaired by Colonel Milián Gómez, and that it had been agreed to promote military cooperation between the two countries "in a planned manner."
In addition to Major Perevozchikov, América TeVé revealed in mid-September 2023 the identity of the individual who would serve as the head of the Cuban mercenaries stationed in the Military Unit of Ryazan.
According to that source, Colonel Román Andreyevich Borsuk would be the head of the 137th Parachute Regiment in Military Unit 41450 of the Russian army, located in the city of Ryazan, from where several Cuban mercenaries had sent photos and provided statements to international media.
Two more testimonies would be crucial to suspect Havana's collaboration in the sending of Cuban mercenaries to Ukraine.
In mid-September 2023, the Cuban ambassador in Moscow, Julio Antonio Garmendía Peña, made statements to the Russian media Sputnik, asserting that Havana did not oppose a "legal participation" of its citizens in the war in Ukraine on the Russian side.
We have nothing against Cubans who wish to sign a contract and legally participate in this operation with the Russian army. However, we oppose illegality, and these operations are not within the legal framework,” stated Garmendia.
And he added: "We are talking about bad people who, based on such an important issue as a military operation, namely the relations between our countries, want to make money, want to line their pockets, and engage in illegal activities."
Although the foreign ministry was quick to deny it, his words were recorded in the pro-government Russian media as evidence of the Havana regime's consent to the presence of Cuban citizens recruited by Russia to invade Ukraine.
Days earlier, Deputy Alexey Chepa, first vice president of the State Duma's International Affairs Committee, denied the involvement of the Russian government in this recruitment, although he admitted that it was possible that citizens were “self-organizing” through social media.
We do not recruit anyone. But individuals can self-organize, work in chat rooms. All Ukrainian embassies in all countries recruit mercenaries for the Ukrainian Army. We do not have that," added the deputy.
With all this information at hand, instead of launching investigations, the Cuban regime preferred to issue generic statements and arrest 17 recruiters at the beginning of September, whose identities were not disclosed, nor was there any further information about the process that was supposedly started against them.
Coincidences that are not
When events align with such precise regularity, it becomes difficult to view them as mere coincidences. Over more than a year of strengthened ties between Cuba and Russia, the data reveals a pattern that repeats with millimetric accuracy.
Every time Havana shakes hands with Moscow—whether signing a new agreement, hosting an official delegation, or publicly praising the alliance between the two countries—it is followed, with brief delays, by a significant increase in the number of Cubans hired by the Russian army to fight in Ukraine.
The same is true for air connectivity. Every increase in flights between Moscow and Cuba, especially with routes operated by Russian airlines such as Rossiya and Nordwind, has coincided with the peak moments of recruits leaving the island.
The routes were neither casual nor innocent: Varadero and Cayo Coco, tourist destinations with no real demand during the low season, became logistical hubs for a silent operation.
The Cuban state apparatus, known for its careful control of migratory movements, did not stop these trips. There were no alerts in the passport offices, nor were there any publicly expressed suspicions about the wave of young people applying for documents and leaving the country for Russia.
The institutional machinery that ruthlessly targets its opponents and requires permits for its citizens to travel did not detect—or did not want to detect—the massive departure toward a foreign war.
There is no evidence of a direct order. No one has presented an official document authorizing the recruitment. Yet all indications suggest that the system not only allowed it: it facilitated it.
From the issuance of passports to the complicit silence in the face of testimonies, everything occurred within a framework of carefully orchestrated inaction. Therefore, even though no signature has been seen on paper, the suspicion that the Cuban state is part of the network gains strength with these analyses.
Cuban Mercenaries: The War That Started in Varadero
This is not just a matter of foreign relations. It is a story of real lives, of young people without a future, of parents who sell their last possessions for a ticket, of recruits who cross half the world believing they will work in a factory, only to awaken in a Ukrainian trench.
The Cuban regime is not only aligned with Russia in United Nations diplomacy but also plays a role in its human supply line. The scandal did not erupt with the revelation of Cuban mercenaries in the trenches. It began in diplomatic offices, landing strips, and agreements made without questions.
And what moved from Havana to Moscow was not just solidarity and diplomatic support. It was Cuban citizens, turned into disposable pieces of a foreign and imperialist war.
Filed under: