The Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) published a message this Monday on its official Facebook account featuring a warlike slogan quoting the late dictator Fidel Castro.
“The war can only conclude with victory or death, and for Cuba, there can be no alternative but victory, no matter the cost”, accompanied by an image of a soldier aiming with an AK-47 rifle atop a rock in a rural setting of the island.
The publication also includes a text on a red background that reads: "War should not be provoked, but we will wage it if the enemy imposes it," with the words "no" and "provoke" highlighted in yellow.
«No matter the cost, our people will prevail!», is one of the phrases spoken by Fidel Castro at the closing ceremony of the first Revolutionary Congress of the National Federation of Barbers and Hairdressers, held at the CTC theater on June 7, 1960.
The message comes at a time of heightened tension between Cuba and the United States in decades. On Saturday, Trump declared in The Villages, Florida, that the U.S. "will take Cuba almost immediately" and threatened to send the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to within 100 yards of the Cuban coast to force the regime's surrender.
On Sunday, Díaz-Canel warned delegates from 36 countries about "the imminence of a military aggression" from the U.S., invoking the doctrine of the "War of the Entire People," stating that "every Cuban has a rifle" and an assigned defensive position.
The MINFAR account on social media has been intensifying its propaganda activity for months since the regime declared 2026 as the "Year of Preparation for Defense."
In January, it was published that "no enemy will be safe in Cuba" and warned of a supposed "genocide" if socialism falls, stirring fear with warlike rhetoric while the Cuban economy was collapsing.
In March, the MINFAR criticized on social media the "soft positions against the adversary" and the regime showcased university students in military training, including shooting with AK rifles and assembling anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.
On May 1, Trump signed an executive order that drastically expands sanctions against the regime, impacting the energy, defense, mining, and financial services sectors with immediate effect.
The phrase cited by MINFAR refers to the rhetorical legacy of Fidel Castro, whose slogan "Homeland or Death" was first pronounced on March 5, 1960 during the funeral honors for the victims of the sabotage of the steamship La Coubre, and which encapsulates the doctrine of total resistance to external threats that the regime has been instrumentalizing for decades.
Díaz-Canel closed his speech on Sunday with a warning that encapsulates the tone of the entire propaganda campaign: "We do not fear war, and there will be neither surprise nor defeat here."
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