Cuba says it has no part in war in Ukraine and would ‘act vigorously’ against those trafficking Cubans as fighters.
Cuba has uncovered a human trafficking ring that has coerced Cuban citizens to fight for Russia in the war in Ukraine, its foreign ministry said, adding that Cuba’s authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.
The statement on Monday from Cuba’s foreign ministry gave few details but noted the trafficking ring was operating both in the Caribbean island nation and within Russia.
“The Ministry of the Interior detected and is working on the neutralization and dismantling of a human trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” the ministry said in the statement.
“Cuba has a firm and clear historical position against mercenarism and plays an active role in the United Nations in repudiation of this practice,” the ministry said, according to an unofficial translation.
“Cuba is not part of the war in Ukraine. It is acting and will act vigorously against whoever, from the national territory, participates in any form of human trafficking for the purposes of recruitment of mercenarism so that Cuban citizens use weapons against any country.”
The Russian government has not commented on the allegations.
In late May, a Russian newspaper in Ryazan city reported that several Cuban citizens had signed contracts with Russia’s armed forces and had been shipped to Ukraine in return for Russian citizenship.
It was not immediately clear if the Cuban foreign ministry statement was associated with the Ryazan report.
Russia last year announced a plan to boost the size of its armed forces by more than 30 percent to 1.5 million combat personnel, a lofty goal made harder by Russia’s heavy but undisclosed casualties in the war in Ukraine.
Cuba also said in the statement that it had already begun prosecuting cases in which its citizens had been coerced into fighting in Ukraine.
“Attempts of this nature have been neutralized and criminal proceedings have been initiated against people involved in these activities,” according to the statement.
Al Jazeera reported last year that the Russian government, through the Wagner mercenary force, had recruited Syrians to fight alongside Russian troops in Ukraine. Thousands across war-torn Syria had reportedly expressed an interest in signing up.
In June, it was reported that an Iraqi citizen was killed fighting with Russia’s Wagner mercenary force in Ukraine.
The deceased, Abbas Abuthar Witwit, was recruited from a prison in Russia with the promise that his sentence would be commuted following his service in Ukraine.
According to court papers seen by the Reuters news agency at the time, Witwit had been sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison on drug charges in July 2021 by a court in the Russian city of Kazan.
Witwit was a first-year student at a technical university in Russia at the time of his conviction.
Cuba says it has no part in war in Ukraine, but Cuba doesn’t condemn Russian genocide and invasion of Ukrainian people since then.
It’s not like Ukraine has taken any great steps to condemn American sanctions on Cuba.
There are no American sanctions on Cuba. In any case, you should talk about USian sanctions.
Lmao what
That person said “American sanctions”. But I don’t remember a whole continent sanctioning Cuba. I remember only one country, which was United States. Even if they were US, Canada and Argentina, that’s not the whole America to say “American sanctions”.
Ah so playing semantics to dismiss the point. Issue is that the US then puts pressure on anyone else dealing with Cuba including their neighbors, so yes, the entire continent of North America is effectively sanctioning Cuba.
It’s not semantics. It’s putting the blame into a continent vs putting the blame into a country.
It’s like Germany is sanctioning China, and someone comes here and says “European sanctions in China”. Well, no.
America = NAFTA
I’m not surprised someone trying to argue regional semantics with a Ukraine flag avatar.
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That’s how sanctions work, the US dictates if you do business with Cuban or any other countries we sanction you can’t do business with us.
Isn’t Russia one of the few countries that Cuba has a friendly relations with? Especially considering the US embargo on them? It isn’t very surprising they are choosing to stay silent.
The EU has generally friendly relations with Cuba. Sure there’s the occasional letter expressing concern about something but it’s not like we’re isolating Cuba, or singling them out. Also Spain legitimately cares. The EU is in fact their main trading partner (page 6), about twice the volume of Russia and China combined.
That’s exactly what “has no part in X” means. The Ukrainian government is not worth supporting, and Cuba’s position won’t change much anyways.