In Russia’s war against Ukraine, Cubans occupy “the most exposed positions on the front,” where the average life expectancy is between 140 and 150 days.
MIAMI, United States. – The organization Citizenship and Freedom, directed by the Cuban activist in exile Carolina Barreropresented the report in Berlin Cuba in the war in Ukraine: evidence of the massive recruitment of combatants for Russiaprepared in collaboration with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF).
The study concludes that there is “a solid case of Cuban state complicity in a large-scale human trafficking operation for military purposes” and suggests that the European Union’s policy towards Havana should be reviewed if it wants to remain consistent with its support for Ukraine.
According to the document, the investigation is supported by information from the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR), “top-level” international media and direct testimonies from recruits and family members. The report documents “the massive participation of Cuban citizens in Russian forces in Ukraine, as well as the role of Cuban authorities in facilitating this operation.”
From the 1,076 confirmed cases to an estimate of up to 25,000 combatants
The minimum figure is supported by official Ukrainian intelligence data. The HUR has confirmed that at least 1,076 Cuban citizens have fought or are fighting for Russia in Ukraine, with 96 documented dead or missing. This statistic includes only cases verified with names, passports and contracts. Other sources cited in the report – including an internal cable from the US State Department and statements by Ukrainian officials – raise the estimate to a range of between 5,000 and 25,000 recruits, which would place Cuba, even in the most conservative estimate, among the largest contingents of foreign fighters in Moscow’s service.
In a Facebook post after the presentationBarrero summarized that, “according to the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine (HUR), up to 25,000 Cuban fighters would have been recruited for the war against Ukraine, which places Cuba as one of the main suppliers of foreign combat force for Russia, comparable only to North Korea.”
The activist stressed that she has been following this issue since 2021, “when no one still believed that Putin would invade Ukraine.” He relates that in 2023 he traveled to Odessa and Mykolaiv, then on the front line, to bring a double message – “Only the regime is with Putin, we Cubans are with Ukraine” – and to denounce the recruitment scheme that, in his opinion, turns even those who come knowing that they will go to the front into “victims of the geopolitical interests of Russia and Cuba.”
Salaries of 2,000 dollars compared to 17 in Cuba
The report portrays those recruited as men around 35 years old, in poverty and in extreme need of income. He points out that the average salary in Cuba is around 4,219 pesos, about 17 dollars in the informal market, while Russian contracts promise monthly payments close to 2,000 dollars, a gap that multiplies by more than 100 the typical income on the Island and that explains the attractiveness of these offers.
Once in Russia, Cubans receive contracts written only in Russian, “in a language they do not understand,” with clauses that contemplate prison sentences of up to 15 years if they break the agreement, as if they were Russian citizens. According to Ukrainian intelligence, recruits undergo just two weeks of training before being sent to “the most exposed positions on the front,” where the average life expectancy is between 140 and 150 days from the signing of the contract.
The study distinguishes two currents within the Cuban contingent: around 60% would be civilians deceived with promises of employment in construction and other jobs, recruited through advertisements on social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and TikTok; The remaining 40% would correspond to personnel from special forces or the intelligence services of the Cuban regime itself, which suggests “a parallel flow of deliberate deployment of military cadres.”
The report also recalls that the United States Department of State formally classified this scheme as a form of “State-sponsored human trafficking.” That designation is based, according to the document, on three elements: deception in the recruitment phase (civilian work is promised), coercion (threat of prison sentence if the recruit tries to break the contract) and exploitation (sending to combat zones with minimal training and withholding of salaries).
“Thousands of young Cubans have died in a war that is not ours, they went to fight in the steppe and lost their lives, deceived for a handful of money. Exploited and used as disposable material, when they could be fighting side by side with other Cubans for freedom,” lamented Barrero.
The report highlights that this massive recruitment would be impossible without, at least, the acquiescence of the Cuban State. Furthermore, it emphasizes that Cuban citizens do not need a visa to travel to Russia and that there are direct flights from Cuban airports, in an internal context of strict mobility control, even within the national territory itself.
The investigation also mentions the participation of official structures, including the military attaché office of the Cuban Embassy in Moscow. The report identifies Colonel Mónica Milián Gómez, military attaché at that diplomatic headquarters, as one of the coordinators of the recruitment network. This participation, the document maintains, is “difficult to reconcile” with Havana’s version that everything is about trafficking networks outside the State.
The Cuban regime announced in September 2023 the arrest of 17 people accused of being part of a human trafficking network to send “mercenaries” to Ukraine. However, shortly before, the Cuban ambassador in Moscow had declared to Russian media that Havana was not opposed to the “legal participation” of its citizens in the “special operation” in Ukraine. The report interprets these positions as part of a “policy of deliberate ambiguity: public denial and practical facilitation.”
The report includes testimonies from fighters captured by Ukraine and from wounded recruits in Russian hospitals. Cubans interviewed describe that they traveled believing they would work in construction and discovered that they had been incorporated into military units only when they were already in Russian bases near the front. According to the stories cited, when they asked to return to Cuba they were denied that possibility and were warned of the criminal consequences of deserting.
The investigation places this scheme in the continuity of Havana’s military foreign policy, recalling operations such as the intervention in Angola (Operation Carlota), Ethiopia or Nicaragua, in which tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers and collaborators participated and more than 2,000 died. However, it highlights essential differences: in those cases they were official troops who fought under the Cuban flag and whose fallen were recognized as martyrs; Today, participation in Ukraine is publicly denied, those recruited are not considered veterans, and their families are left unprotected.
The document also reviews military and intelligence cooperation between Cuba and Russia, from the historic Lourdes base to the most recent deployment of Russian military specialists on the island, and mentions the presence of Chinese intelligence infrastructure. It presents Cuba as a “joint Russian-Chinese intelligence platform” 90 miles from the United States, with direct implications for transatlantic security.
