Díaz-Canel on the recruitment of Cubans in Russia: "We are not part of the war in Ukraine"

The mandataryMiguel Diaz-CanelHe stated that his government is not participating in the war in Ukraine, but acknowledged that "an illegal network was hiring Cubans living in Russia and some living in Cuba to fight on the Russian side."

"We did not participate in the war in Ukraine, but we discovered through our investigations that an illegal network was hiring Cubans living in Russia and some living in Cuba to fight on the Russian side," he said in a statement.interview exclusiveAt the end of September, during his stay in New York, to the director of the newspaperThe Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel.

The representative of the Havana regime commented that his government informed "the parties involved and we publicly denounced what happened," despite the fact that the case was actually uncovered by the relatives of severalrecruited youth at the end of August.

"Our Penal Code prohibits mercenaries, and we consider that this is a case of mercenarism, as well as human trafficking," he commented.

He noted that thanks to close relations with Russia, they have been ablework to eliminate traffic illegal trafficking of people that turns them into mercenaries.

"I can certify that Cuba is not part of the war and that if we again discovered an illegal trafficking network like the one we saw, we would denounce it and act to stop it," he stressed.

The Cuban government insists on "using all international mechanisms and spaces for dialogue," said Díaz-Canel, who however omitted that it has opposed all the sanctions and pressure that the European Union and the United Nations have tried to establish. on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

He noted that "there is an attempt to distort reality and impose a crooked framework," and considered that "the United States government motivated the war by not listening to Russia's complaints and warnings about the danger posed by the expansion of NATO's borders towards Russia".

The case of the Cuban mercenaries was uncovered after two families on the island reported that their children had been deceived by a woman who contacted them on Facebook and upon arriving in Russia enrolled them in the war.

Under pressure from these revelations, the Cuban Foreign Ministry issued a statement rejecting any form of participation in the invasion of Ukraine and emphasized that mercenarism is a crime in the country. After the scandal, the Cuban regime said that its security agencies had dismantled an illegal network that involved 17 people and that allegedly recruited Cubans to participate in the military operation in Ukraine on the side of Russian troops.

Then the digital mediumInform Napalm exposed the identity of another 200 Cuban mercenaries recruited into the ranks of the Russian Armed Forces by Anton Perevozchikov, military commissar of Tula; and despite the discourse of the Cuban regime, the pastOctober 24th it turned out thatRussia continued to recruit young people from the island.

At least 59 more Cuban mercenaries arrived in Russian territory in recent weeks to sign a contract and three of them are already in active service as part of the army, as revealed that day by the digital media, citing Ukrainian hackers from the Cyber Resistance group as a source. .

In a detailed article, the aforementioned media showed evidence that proves the hiring of more Cuban mercenaries by the Russian Armed Forces in the war against Ukraine, which would refute the statements of the Cuban authorities about the "blockade" of the supply channel of mercenaries to Russia.