The Cuban writer and doctor César Reynel Aguilera did not rule out this Sunday, hours after learning of the death of Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, that the passing of the Cuban leader, popularly known as "charco de sangre," could be linked to the failure of the operation on January 3, 2026, in Venezuela, when the U.S. Delta Force captured Nicolás Maduro and dismantled the Cuban security apparatus that was protecting him.
Aguilera stated this in an interview with Tania Costa, during which he also defended the modified Constitution of 1940 and its implementation when the transition to Cuba occurs.
"Since the success of the operation on January 3 with Delta Force, which resulted in the elimination of 32 Cuban agents, it was already known that Ramiro Valdés had to be eliminated."
The writer described Castroism as an organization where serious mistakes have lethal consequences. "In Castroism, when you make a mistake in such a grave manner, as in any gangster organization, you pay with your life." In Valdés's case, he noted, the mechanism could be as discreet as "changing his doctor."
Aguilera explained her reasoning: "As soon as I saw that operation fail from the Castroist perspective, with all their security apparatus, elite troops, and super tough, highly trained individuals being killed... I said Ramiro Valdés is finished."
During that operation, 32 Cuban soldiers were killed who were part of Maduro's security detail, a fact that the Cuban MININT itself confirmed on January 5 and 6, 2026.
However, Aguilera did not rule out other explanations either. "He was 94 years old, he could have also died of natural causes; it's one of the hypotheses that we need to consider. Or a combination of the shock of being defeated and coronary or cerebral vascular constriction."
The second thesis developed by Aguilera is that Valdés was not simply a man loyal to Fidel Castro, but an undercover agent of the intelligence apparatus of the old Communist Party with Soviet ties predating 1959.
"Finally, I have been able to find indicative information that Ramiro Valdés was indeed a member of the intelligence apparatus of the old Communist Party and therefore had ties to Soviet intelligence from the very beginning, even before Fidel Castro's victory."
As evidence, he pointed out Valdés's ties with Víctor Trapote, a Spanish sculptor and communist exiled in Mexico identified as a lieutenant colonel of the GRU —the Soviet military intelligence— whose studio served as a coordination point for supporting the Castro supporters. According to Aguilera, “the two men most closely associated with Víctor Trapote in Mexico were Universo Sánchez... and Ramiro Valdés, to the extent that Ramiro Valdés ended up marrying Irina Trapote, the daughter of Víctor Trapote.”
In 1959, when Valdés took nominal control of the Cuban G-2, the actual operational leaders were Osvaldo Sánchez and Víctor Pina Cardoso, who indeed had intelligence training. According to Aguilera, Valdés was the figurehead projected by the regime's propaganda.
Regarding the well-known strained relationship between Valdés and Raúl Castro, Aguilera provided an interpretation that does not contradict it but rather reframes it: both would have been assets of Moscow within the Castro regime, but operating in parallel.
"Raúl Castro is the visible face of the Soviet man in Cuba. In Cuba, everyone knew that Moscow's interests always passed through Raúl Castro's office," he stated, adding that "no intelligence agency or any country puts all its eggs in one basket."
Aguilera concluded that "the death of Ramiro Valdés today can also be seen as the loss of a man who was first with the Soviets and later with the Russians within Castro," a perspective that reframes the leader's passing not only as the end of a historical figure of Castroism but also as the disappearance of a link in the Russian influence network on the Island.
Filed under: