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The update on the number of Cubans who have died in the war in Ukraine —at least 93 confirmed as of January 27, 2026— should not be treated as just another statistic.
Behind every name is a shattered family, a body without a grave, a mother waiting for news that never arrives, and a State that has chosen to look the other way. A national tragedy buried under complicity and fear.
Their names do not appear in Granma. None of their portraits are shown on national television. There will be no flower in the Plaza de la Revolución for Juan Raúl Pedroso Barrios, who was only 23 years old, died on June 21, 2024.
Neither for Reinerio Roble Valencia, a 62-year-old man who was likely seeking one last economic opportunity for his grandchildren.
No one will read an obituary for Yoan Viondi Mendoza, who passed away months before turning 30, and whose family learned of his death from third parties, while the Cuban embassy in Moscow did not lift a finger.
The government of Miguel Díaz-Canel —the same one that declared two weeks of national mourning for the slain guards of Nicolás Maduro— has not said a word about the 93 Cubans who have died under the Russian flag.
Not a statement, not a condolence, not an attempt to repatriate remains. Just silence. An infamous silence.
How is it possible that so many young people have left Cuba with newly issued passports, heading to a foreign war, without the State—who obsessively controls every migratory process—raising any alarms?
How could a wave of requests to Russia go unanswered, without questions, alerts, or interference? The answer is clear and devastating: they knew. They allowed it. And, very likely, they facilitated it.
In a country where obtaining a passport requires justifying the trip, where leaving national territory involves navigating a bureaucratic and police control apparatus, hundreds—perhaps thousands—of Cubans emigrated legally to Moscow, signed contracts in Russian that they did not understand, were sent to military bases in Ryazan, Tula, or Rostov, and ultimately found themselves thrust into the frontline as cannon fodder.
Some died in just weeks. The young Leonel Duquesne Fundichely was identified by documents among the rubble, buried in a mass grave.
Denis Frank Pacheco Rubio, Raibel Palacio Herrera, Eduardo Montero Martínez, Yansiel Morejón Díaz: these are names of individuals who will never return to their homes. Their mothers have no coffins to mourn over; only the news leaked by Ukrainian activists and reproduced by independent media.
A research study based on records from the "Quiero Vivir" project, an initiative by the Ukrainian government to document deceased soldiers and prisoners, reveals that at least 23 Cubans died before completing 4 months of service.
Another 30, in less than a year. They signed up believing they would be working as builders. They ended up carrying rifles in Zaporiyia, consumed by bombings in the Donbass. Average age: 40 years. Many left young children on the island.
And while this was happening, the regime was silent. It still remains silent. Not a word about compensation. Not a diplomatic effort to support the bereaved. Not a death certificate. Cuba buries its children in silence if they fall under another flag.
Where is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs? Where is the Ombudsman? Where are the institutions that should protect citizens abroad? Or did these young people cease to be Cubans when they died serving Russia?
The response that has been offered —the narrative that it is all “an already dismantled illegal operation”— is an insult to the truth.
In September 2023, the MININT announced the arrest of 17 individuals involved in an alleged recruitment network. We never learned their names. There was never a public trial. No evidence was presented. What happened to that investigation? Was it shelved to protect the real culprits?
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla insists that Cuba does not participate in the conflict, despite the fact that the Cuban ambassador in Moscow, Julio Garmendía Peña, publicly stated that his country "did not oppose" its citizens serving in the Russian army. The contradictions are as grotesque as they are revealing.
Havana's foreign policy unabashedly aligns with the interests of the Kremlin. It has voted against UN resolutions condemning the Russian invasion. It has ideologically defended Moscow's positions. But at no time has it defended its own dead citizens. Not one.
The damage is not only geopolitical or diplomatic. It is a social cancer. Young Cubans —indoctrinated, misinformed, trapped in poverty and hopelessness— are easy prey for these recruitments. The official silence normalizes horror, dehumanizes pain, and perpetuates impunity.
A government that claims to be revolutionary, anti-imperialist, and a defender of human dignity cannot ignore the deaths of its children in a foreign conflict. If it does, if it remains silent, if it conceals the truth, then it ceases to be a protective state and becomes a criminal accomplice.
The dead do not return. But the pain of their families is alive. In Santiago, Matanzas, Villa Clara, or Guantánamo, there are mothers who still wait for a call. There are children who do not understand why dad doesn't come back. There are empty homes and silences heavier than the grave.
The Cuban regime must respond. It must face the truth. It must stop hiding its dead. Because a state that does not honor its fallen, that does not care for its living, that exports its youth to fuel foreign wars, has no right to speak of sovereignty or social justice.
And because these 93 Cubans deserve more than oblivion: they deserve transparency, truth, and justice.
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