The Italian newspaper Domani published a report this Saturday from Havana by Jaime Ondarza that describes Cuba with a starkness hard to find even in critical media: “Now here it seems like hell”, says a Cuban source quoted in the title of the text.
The journalist recounts his arrival at Havana airport, immersed in a "dense and surreal" darkness, barely illuminated by the headlights of a few cars. The bus taking him to the historic center—a dilapidated vehicle bearing the logo of the Veneto Region—has its door held together with wooden beams.
What Ondarza finds in the city is no less bleak: families cannot find food even in the black market, there is no milk, the lines for bread are long, and people have visibly lost weight.
One of the most evocative details of the report is the use of the fan as a detector for electricity: the women leave it plugged in overnight, and if they hear the blades spinning in their sleep, they know that the power has returned and they get up to start the washing machine.
That everyday image accurately summarizes the reality of the Cuban energy collapse. This Saturday, the National Electric System had only 1,070 MW available against a demand of 2,830 MW, covering only 38% of what is needed. Some circuits in Havana experienced over 52 consecutive hours without electricity at the beginning of November, and the island has suffered at least seven total national blackouts throughout 2026.
The report from Domani also estimates the monthly salary of a Cuban doctor to be the equivalent of four dollars. Although since July 2026, the official base salary for a newly graduated doctor is 7,045 Cuban pesos—around 10 to 14 dollars at the informal exchange rate, according to Resolution 17/2026 from the Ministry of Labor—this income remains ridiculously low compared to a basic basket for two people, which exceeds 41,000 pesos monthly in Havana.
The paradox is even sharper when considering that more than 200 Cuban doctors work in the Italian region of Calabria, where the regime retains up to 76% of their salaries through the Cuban Medical Services Marketing Company.
The report from Domani arrives three days after the newspaper Il Manifesto —historically supportive of the Cuban Revolution— published its own piece from Havana titled "No Exit, Cuba at Its Last Breath in Trump's Grip," signed by Roberto Livi. The acknowledgment of the seriousness of the situation by an Italian communist media outlet was noted as particularly significant.
The Italian coverage is set against a backdrop of intense international attention to the Cuban crisis. In October, journalist Jon Lee Anderson described the situation as "perhaps worse than the Special Period of the nineties", and estimated that nearly 20% of the population has left the island since 2021.
The report by Domani attributes the crisis to the U.S. embargo and the cessation of Venezuelan fuel supply following the capture of Nicolás Maduro in January 2026. However, the Cuban energy crisis has deeper roots: decades of underinvestment in infrastructure, thermal power plants over forty years old, and the management of the military conglomerate GAESA, which concentrates economic power without reinvesting in public services.
According to Cuban officials cited by CBS News, Cuba received only one oil tanker from the beginning of 2026 until November, worsening a collapse that was already structural before Venezuela stopped sending fuel.
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