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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia issued a formal statement this Thursday accusing the United States of preparing an armed intervention against Cuba, describing the situation as a "new escalation of tensions" and drawing a direct analogy with the military operation that resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela in January of this year.
The , published by the Russian Embassy in Cuba, points out that the immediate trigger was the criminal charges filed on May 19 by the U.S. Department of Justice against Raúl Castro for the shooting down of two airplanes belonging to the organization Brothers to the Rescue on February 24, 1996, which resulted in the deaths of four Cuban Americans.
Moscow described those charges as "fabricated" and framed them within a Washington strategy to justify a show of force: "Thirty years after the incident, an attempt is being made to use it to create an appearance of legitimacy for the unprecedented pressure on the Cuban leadership with the evident goal of changing the regime in the country and establishing control over the State."
The statement points directly to the U.S. naval deployment as a sign of military threat: "It seems that everything is being done to demonstrate the possibility of armed intervention against Cuba. The analogies with the events of January in Venezuela are unavoidable."
The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier arrived in the Caribbean basin amid increasing pressure on the island, as confirmed by the Miami Herald on Thursday.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also rejected Washington's economic sanctions and reaffirmed its support for the regime in Havana: "We firmly reject unilateral restrictive measures aimed at economically strangling the Island of Freedom."
In parallel, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, stated that Russia maintains contact with Cuba "on all issues of interest to our two countries" and dismissed the report from Axios regarding Cuba's acquisition of more than 300 military drones from Russia and Iran, labeling it as "fiction" within the context of an "information war."
The Russian support for the Cuban regime has a legal basis in a military cooperation agreement signed in March 2025 and ratified by Putin as law on October 15, 2025.
The escalation intensified this week following the declassification on May 20 of the formal charges against Raúl Castro, which include charges of conspiracy to assassinate American citizens and four counts of homicide for the deaths of Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales.
Trump warned on Wednesday that the U.S. will not tolerate Cuba as a state that hosts hostile operations 90 miles from its territory, while the Cuban regime described the charges against Raúl Castro as a "scoundrel act" and threatened with "fierce resistance" to any aggression.
Analysts point out that Moscow, immersed in the war in Ukraine, can only offer Cuba real political support, without the capacity for economic or military rescue comparable to that of the Soviet era.
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