MIAMI, United States. – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov thanked the Cuban regime this Thursday in Havana for its “full understanding” of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The official met with Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel in the island’s capital, the last leg of a tour of Latin America that also took him to Brazil, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
“We appreciate that from the very beginning of the special military operation our Cuban friends (…) have clearly stated their position and expressed their full understanding in their assessments of the reasons that led to the current situation,” Lavrov said during a meeting with his counterpart. Cuban, Bruno Rodríguez, according to a message from the Russian Foreign Ministry quoted by AFP.
In addition, Lavrov described the US embargo against the Cuban regime as “illegal and illegitimate” and said that his country had also been “the subject of US sanctions (…) long before the current events.”
For its part, the Cuban Foreign Ministry rejected the sanctions applied to Russia, according to an official statement about the meeting. Havana stressed that the expansion of NATO is “the main cause of the conflict in Europe” and “advocated for a serious, constructive and realistic diplomatic solution to the current crisis, which guarantees security, peace and regional and international stability”.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the island’s regime has shown solidarity with Moscow and criticized Kiev.
In October 2022, Havana abstained to condemn Russia for the annexation of Ukrainian territories, during a vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations. However, this multinational body approved with a resounding majority the resolution condemning the “illegal referendums” carried out in four Ukrainian regions and Russia’s attempts to annex those territories.
On October 21, 2022, the Cuban government also opposed the intervention of the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, in the annual high-level debates of the UN General Assembly.
Although on that occasion Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Nicaragua and Syria also opposed it, the member states overwhelmingly approved Kiev’s request that Zelensky could speak before the rest of the world leaders without having to travel to New York. , given the state of war in your country.
Also the 1st. March 2022, the island’s regime confirmed its support for Russia during an emergency session of the UN General Assembly in which the majority of the organization’s member states condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Shortly before, on February 23, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs had blamed the United States for “imposing the progressive expansion of NATO towards the borders of the Russian Federation.”
Through a statement issued, MINREX declared that Russia had the right to defend itself and accused the US government of “threatening” the Eurasian country and “manipulating the international community about the dangers of an imminent massive invasion of Ukraine”, as well as developing an anti-Russian propaganda campaign.
