The Cuban writer and doctor César Reynel Aguilera presents a thesis that completely reframes the figure of Ramiro Valdés Menéndez: the founder of MININT was, almost certainly, an undercover agent of the Soviet intelligence apparatus infiltrated since before 1959. He shared this hypothesis this Sunday in an interview with Tania Costa, the same day that Díaz-Canel confirmed Valdés' death, at the age of 94.
"For the first time, I see Ramiro Valdés's figure in a much more complex position than that of a country boy who rose up and was fiercely Castroist," Aguilera stated, adding that even one of Valdés's women confirmed to him that he was not a "fierce Castroist" but rather "Guevarist." "He viewed things through Che Guevara's lens."
That loyalty to Che, however, did not prevent him —according to Aguilera's thesis— from allowing the Argentine to be eliminated in Bolivia in 1967. "Why? Because it suited the Soviets to eliminate Che Guevara. Ramiro did not inform Che Guevara," the writer argued, interpreting that omission as the missing piece that makes everything fit together.
Another element that Aguilera incorporates into his argument is that Valdés was a well-known communist in Artemisa, a fact he claims to have "if not confirmed, at least reported by someone knowledgeable." The main source of this reconstruction is René Cruz Cruz, whom he describes as intellectually sharp and possessing a precise memory. "He told me the stories. I kept taking notes and taking notes and taking notes and taking notes, and he left me with a numb hand."
The conclusion that Aguilera draws from all this is straightforward: "If all of this is true, then the Russians have just lost a man in Cuba."
The writer also links Valdés' death to the failure of the operation on January 3, 2026, when 32 Cuban escorts died in Venezuela during a U.S. military incursion. According to Aguilera, after that episode, all the analysts he spoke with agreed that for Ramiro Valdés, "what remains are just two shaves," meaning that his end was imminent.
"When the events of January 3 occurred, one of the conclusions shared by everyone was that. It's not that I'm a genius and I came up with it while no one else did. No, many of us saw it as something inevitable," he clarified.
Aguilera acknowledged that Valdés's passing surprised him somewhat. "Death doesn't surprise me. Nor does it surprise me that it was a natural death because it's true he was 94 years old. However, he always seemed the healthiest of them all. He would run down Fifth Avenue, exercised, took care of himself, and had beautiful women." He added, "The truth is, I think he should have been the one to last the longest."
Valdés had been absent from public life since September 2025, and on June 6th, Díaz-Canel was already paying tribute to him while he was still alive, a clear indication of his terminal condition. A founder of MININT in 1961 and the architect of the General Directorate of Intelligence, Valdés established a structural collaboration with the KGB that turned Cuba into a Moscow intelligence platform in the western hemisphere, as documented in the CIDOB profile of Valdés.
For Aguilera, the fulfillment of his prediction about Valdés' death validates what he refers to as his "analytical microprocessor." "The way it happened doesn't interest me, but those are the predictions I make that, when they come true, I say: look, the microprocessor is working." He concluded with a brief statement: "In fact, to be honest, it lasted quite a while."
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