The leader Miguel Díaz-Canel defended this Friday the military preparedness and the ongoing activation of defense structures during a visit to the Arroyo Arenas Defense Zone in the La Lisa municipality of Havana, amid a crisis that leaves the population focused on unresolved basic needs.
During the tour, conducted in the context of National Defense Day, Díaz-Canel stated that the months of training under real conditions have better prepared the country for potential threats.
"I believe that today you yourselves, as the Defense structure, are better prepared," he said, before asserting that this preparation contributes to the country "more invulnerability from a military perspective and from a defense standpoint," highlighted a report from the Presidency portal.
The official insisted on the alleged threat of a U.S. aggression and described Washington's sanctions as a "completely genocidal and totally criminal act."
He also defended the continuity of territorial defense structures and assured that military preparedness, ideological strength, and efforts to achieve economic sovereignty would lead to a new victory against the threats from the United States government. "We are still in combat," he stated.
However, during the exchange, the president of the National Defense Council acknowledged that among the issues requiring direct attention are food supply, medications, water supply, the power situation, and solid waste collection.
The ruler called for the plans to be perfected and assured that the economic and social transformations must provide responses to the population, although he did not present concrete results regarding the resolution of those challenges.
The President of the National Assembly of People's Power and the Council of State Esteban Lazo Hernández attended the tour, along with the Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Roberto Morales Ojeda; the Army Corps Generals Álvaro López Miera and Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, Ministers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and of the Interior, respectively; as well as the Secretary of the Council of Ministers, Division General José Amado Ricardo Guerra.
The Division General Ernest Feijóo Eiró, head of the Western Army; the Attorney General of the Republic, Yamila Peña Ojeda; as well as the president of the Provincial Defense Council of Havana, Liván Izquierdo Alonso; among other authorities, the source specified.
This pattern of visits to Defense Zones has been repeated every Friday since the regime declared 2026 the Year of Preparation for Defense.
In each visit, the zone presidents themselves express the same shortcomings to Díaz-Canel. In Punta Brava, at the beginning of October, the head of the Zone Defense Council detailed issues with water, electricity, and more than 200 hectares of agricultural land, of which only half was being cultivated.
Last week, the Head of State visited the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic), which has also become the headquarters of the Colón Nuevo Vedado Defense Council, chaired by the director of the institution and cultural commissioner, Alexis Triana Hernández. During the visit, issues related to water supply and electrical transformer malfunctions were raised, affecting the area where more than 15,000 residents live.
The leader systematically reframes those shortcomings as part of the defensive "integrality" and attributes the crisis to the U.S. embargo, which he described as a "completely genocidal and totally criminal" act.
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