The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pressured the authorities of the Cuban regime so that the government of Miguel Diaz-Canel grant more facilities to Russian economic operators.
During his visit to Havana, the envoy of Vladimir Putin He met with his Cuban counterpart and addressed issues on the common agenda, according to the ambiguous coverage given by the official media.
“Additional impetus has been given for Russian economic operators to participate in the Cuban economy,” the Russian Foreign Minister said impersonally on the ninth trip he has made to Cuba in his almost 20 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.
The purpose of building the appropriate legal bases for the relationship between both regimes was addressed in a meeting with the Cuban leader, as well as continuing to advance in “economic, commercial and investment cooperation.”
In statements to the press, the diplomat affirmed that both governments have made decisions to strengthen the political basis of the permanent rapprochement. Havana is an unconditional ally of Moscow in the region, and has not hesitated to make it evident in various international forums expressing support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Without being asked for the worrying increase in military cooperation between both countries, the presence of Cuban mercenaries in the war in Ukraine, or the transfer of Cuban sovereignty to Russian geopolitical interests, Lavrov mentioned issues such as the supply of oil, its derivatives, and fertilizers to the Cuban regime, which he insisted on meeting the conditions demanded by Russian investors to create facilities for Russian investments and businesses on the Island.
“There are still few investors in Cuba, except for the Spanish. Because the regulation is still strictly communist. So far there isn't much of a market there. But there are opportunities,” he said in July of last year. Boris Titov, Russian advisor for market reforms in Cuba and head of the Cuban-Russian Business Committee.
Interviewed by the Financial Markets Magazine Financial One, Titov stated that Cuba was a niche of market opportunities, and compared it to “the Soviet Union of the late 80s.”
“Cuba today is Russia, more precisely the USSR of the late 80s. Basically, everything is prohibited, but something is already allowed. Cooperative restaurants are already operating,” said Titov, one of Putin's top economic advisers, during a meeting with members of the Moscow Business Assembly.
Furthermore, the businessman pointed out that in Cuba there continues to be a huge underground and dollarized economy that needs to surface, for which political reforms and “a complete reform of the market” are required.
"Russian economists offered Cuba a plan for changes to promote a market economy that preserves social support. Economic reform can and should be promoted by small and medium-sized businesses. In Cuba, SMEs are equivalent to private companies, since the State controls all strategic areas," Titov declared in April to the magazine Sputnik.
For the Siglo XXI ideas laboratory, an independent Cuban civil society organization based in Madrid, the agreement with Russia to create an Economic Transformation Center that promotes reforms in the Cuban economy, confirms its “transition towards a market mafia state like Putin's”.
“Those forces that in democratic countries with the rule of law and free markets have been advocating for constructive relations with the Cuban power elite must discard illusions and take due note that it has already decided, formally and publicly, to 'modernize' its mafia state in close alliance with the worst enemy of the West at this moment: Putin's Russia,” the center said in a statement.
In mid-May, Titov revealed that the Cuban regime had offered Russian companies the right to use usufruct of the land of the island for a period of 30 years. "They are giving us preferential treatment," admitted Titov in a speech at the Hotel Nacional, in which he added that "the path is clear," as it is a privilege rarely granted to foreign companies in Cuba.
During his speech, Titov boasted that the Caribbean authorities had decisively opened the doors to a rapid increase in Russian investments in Cuba, for which they had important benefits to offer.
In addition to the transfer of usufruct lands or tax exemptions, Titov alluded to other joint plans, such as the soon opening of a store for the sale of Russian products to the population on the island.
“A lot is being done for Russian investors, there are preferential conditions,” Titov said last January. “Everything will be fine,” he said in May, referring to the shopping center with Russian food products and household goods that they plan to open in Havana.
Titov's words and Lavrov's visits raise fears of advice for the opening of the market similar to that carried out by the hand of Boris Yeltsin: reforms that led the Russian transition from socialism to capitalism hand in hand with corruption, mafia practices and the creation of a kleptocratic oligarchy that ended up functioning as the economic arm of the Putin regime, markedly authoritarian, repressive and illiberal.
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