More than a thousand Cubans have signed contracts to fight for Russia against Ukraine, and 39 have been confirmed dead, a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence said in a press briefing convened by Cuban American Republican lawmakers from South Florida.
Citing intelligence sources, Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, said the number of Cubans hired by the Russian military to fight in its war against Ukraine could be as high as 20,000.
“Cuba is ranked at the very top among the source countries for mercenaries,” Yusov said, speaking through a translator. “Currently, our good intelligence tells us about at least 20,000 people from Cuba who have already filled out the documents and have been recruited to fight for Russia. We have been able to physically identify over 1,000 of those mercenaries.”
Yusov and other Ukrainian officials spoke from Kyiv on a video call during a briefing hosted by U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, the vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee and chairman of the subcommittee on National Security, the State Department and Related Programs. He was joined by Reps. María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez, and Rosa María Payá, a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In September 2023, Ukrainian hackers leaked documents showing that a Russian military officer was behind an effort to recruit about 200 Cuban mercenaries. Around that time, Cuban authorities said they arrested 17 people involved in a human trafficking ring sending Cubans to fight for Russia. But since then, Cuban authorities have gone quiet and have not made any more details of the case public. Cuban officials deny that the government is sending its citizens to fight abroad.
The information provided by the Ukrainian officials suggests recruitment efforts have continued.
Yusov said more than a thousand Cubans signed contracts with the Russian military between June 2023 and February 2024, many after the date Cuban authorities said they had dismantled the recruiting ring, and accused the Cuban government of complicity.
“Taking into account the totalitarian nature of the Cuban regime, such recruitment could not have taken place without the blessing of the Cuban regime,” Yusov said.
Maryan Zablotskyy, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, who also spoke during the briefing, said one of the Russian military officers behind the recruiting effort was actually stationed in Cuba.
“Our forces and volunteers were able to hack the emails of two recruiters,” in 2023, he said. “One is a Russian military intelligence officer. He was present at the Russian military base in Cuba, and he was given a go-ahead to recruit. The regime is allowing Russian recruiters, Russian military officers, to roam free in Cuba and do whatever they want.”
Orlando Gutierrez, a Cuban-American activist who helped organize and moderate the briefing, said the revelation was “stunning.”
Zablotskyy shared screenshots of the passport and a signed contract from January by Dianne Gladys García Benavides, 25, from Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second-largest city, in what he said is the first confirmed case of a Cuban woman recruited by the Russian army to fight against Ukraine.
He also shared a list with the names of the 39 dead Cuban mercenaries. He said the information was gathered by Ukrainian foreign intelligence and special security services and teams of “volunteer” hackers.
The Ukrainian lawmaker also revealed the identity of a Cuban mercenary, Yusbel González Turcas, 52, who is currently detained in Kyiv, and who has several entries to Moscow stamped on his Cuban passport, according to screenshots of the document. Zablotskyy said that the multiple entries “likely mean he is connected to the Cuban regime.”
González Turcás lived in Santiago de Cuba and was a security consultant at a local Joven Club, a computing club run by the state, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Oleksandr Merezhko, the chairman of the foreign relations committee of the Ukrainian parliament, said during the event that governments supporting Russia “should be regarded as accomplices of the war crimes and other crimes committed by Russia.” And Vladyslav Vlasyuk, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, suggested the United States impose secondary sanctions, or tariffs, on governments like Cuba or North Korea – which have sent troops to help Russia – that are on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. That would be another way to further pressure the Russian government, he said.
Reacting to the revelations, the three Florida lawmakers vowed to continue working with members of the Ukrainian parliament to put pressure on both Cuba and Russia with sanctions, and on the European Union to end its cooperation agreement with Cuba.
Echoing the Ukrainian officials, Payá said “it’s not possible that an operation of this size can take place in Cuba without the participation, the facilitation” of the Cuban government.
“It is a tragedy for the Cuban people,” she added.
The Ukrainian officials also shared letters of Cuban mercenaries to Russian authorities complaining they have not been discharged from the military despite the expiration of their contracts, and a letter from a Cuban woman asking for help locating her husband, a Cuban mercenary considered “missing in action.” They also shared documents from a court case in Russia involving another recruiter for the Russian army, Elena Smirnova, accused of pocketing the salaries of between 300 and 400 Cuban mercenaries.
The officials said Cubans’ primary motivation for getting involved in the war is the $2,000 monthly salary paid by the Russian army. In recent years, life in Cuba has become even more difficult, as the population deals with daily blackouts, shortages of food and medicines and a crumbled infrastructure. The average monthly salary of a state worker is the equivalent of $15.
The average age of the Cubans recruited is 35.
“This is the age where people should be building families and working hard, but unfortunately, they choose to go to war,” Yusov said. “This is the age at which young Cuban men die for the imperialist ambitions of Vladimir Putin.”
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