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General Francis L. Donovan, head of the United States Southern Command, met this Friday with General de Cuerpo de Ejército Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, First Deputy Minister and Chief of the General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), at the dividing perimeter of the Guantanamo Naval Base.
The meeting, the first of its kind in "recent memory" between a chief of the Southern Command and Cuban military officials, was announced by the social media page of the Eastern Army of Cuba, which published a photograph featuring five military personnel: three in Cuban olive green uniforms and two in camouflage uniforms of the U.S. Armed Forces.
According to the official statement, the meeting took place "by agreement of both parties" and "both delegations consider the encounter to be positive, where topics related to security around the boundary of the military enclave were discussed," in addition to agreeing to "maintain communication between both military commands."
The meeting takes place amid the largest escalation of military tension between Washington and Havana in recent years. Since February 4, the U.S. has accumulated more than 150 hours of aerial surveillance around Cuba, and on May 20, it deployed the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group in the Caribbean.
On the same day, President Donald Trump himself stated that a military escalation would not be "necessary" because Cuba is "collapsing," while analyst Marc Caputo from Axios described an intervention as "a real possibility, but not an imminent probability."
The Cuban regime, for its part, had responded with alarm to the accumulated pressure. On May 28, the National Assembly issued a statement warning of a "real and dangerous threat of direct military aggression" from the U.S., a rhetoric that contrasts with the dialogue tone projected just a day later in Guantánamo.
The Cuban interlocutor at the meeting, Legrá Sotolongo, is one of the highest-ranking military officials in the regime: he has held the position of First Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces since 2021 and was promoted to the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba in December 2025, indicating that Havana sent a representative of the highest level.
The meeting is not the first in the context of the regional escalation. In March, the U.S. mission chief in Cuba, Mike Hammer, met with Donovan to discuss issues related to the island, and between May 5 and 7, Donovan participated alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the SOUTHCOM Chiefs of Mission Conference in Doral, Florida, where Cuba was a central topic.
On May 21, Donovan met with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon amidst a regional escalation, and on May 24, he arrived in Caracas to oversee plans in the area.
Politico reported that the Pentagon has conducted contingency planning sessions for various scenarios in Cuba, ranging from limited options to a potential ground invasion, although no decision has been made and no imminent action is planned.
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