Raúl Castro congratulates Daniel Ortega on his 81st birthday and reaffirms their alliance in the face of the "imperial offensive."

Raúl Castro sent an official letter to Daniel Ortega this Wednesday to congratulate him on his 81st birthday, in which he reaffirmed the alliance between the Cuban and Nicaraguan regimes in the face of what the Cuban dictator described as “the imperial offensive against the sovereign peoples of Our America”.

The message, disseminated by the Nicaraguan state channel Canal 2, is printed on the letterhead of the Republic of Cuba and is dated in Havana on November 11, 2026. In it, Castro praised the historical role of the Sandinista National Liberation Front and referred to Ortega as the "continuator of the struggles of Sandino and Carlos Fonseca Amador."

"We appreciate your fraternal friendship and solidarity support, which is even more significant under the current conditions as we collectively confront the imperial offensive against the sovereign peoples of Our America," wrote Castro, before closing the letter with the Sandinista slogan "Free Homeland or Die" and sending personal regards to Rosario Murillo, co-president of Nicaragua.

The congratulation is not an isolated gesture, but rather a continuation of a pattern of mutual solidarity between two dictatorships that see themselves as allies against Washington. In May 2026, when Castro was formally charged in the United States for the downing of aircraft from Hermanos al Rescate in 1996, the Ortega and Murillo regime issued an unconditional statement of support for the Cuban general, signed on behalf of the FSLN and closed with the phrase "Raúl and Fidel, Leaders of Heroic and Victorious Peoples."

The letter arrives at a particularly fragile moment for both dictators. Ortega reappeared publicly just two days before his birthday, on November 9, after 68 days of absence, visibly weakened and moving slowly, at a tribute event for Carlos Fonseca Amador in Managua. The Nicaraguan government is tight-lipped about his health status and has not issued any official medical diagnosis.

Castro, at 95 years old, has also drastically reduced his public presence: he did not attend the IX Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba nor the central event on July 26, and his statements are limited to letters circulated by third parties or state television. The letter to Ortega is his second written message in less than a week: three days prior, he had sent another letter congratulating the Cuban Military Counterintelligence on its 64th anniversary.

Ortega also received congratulations from Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, shared on Monday by Rosario Murillo, as well as from Miguel Díaz-Canel, who emphasized the "brotherhood" between Cuba and Nicaragua. The geopolitical context adds another layer of significance: last Tuesday, the United States reminded that Nicaragua should have held presidential elections that day, marking the end of Ortega's fourth consecutive term, during which he has been in power since 2007 without allowing free electoral competition.

The alliance between both regimes has roots in the revolutionary solidarity of the 1980s and has been strengthened in recent years in response to pressure from Washington, which in 2026 executed its broadest sanctions offensive against Nicaragua to date, including the designation of two of Ortega and Murillo's children and seven companies in the gold sector.