The coordinator of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, told Breitbart News on Tuesday that Cubans “suffer under the same type of regime that Ukrainians suffer” after a Ukrainian lawmaker presented evidence that thousands of Cuban mercenaries are participating in the Russian invasion of their country.
He noted that the European Union, which has aggressively advocated for Ukraine and imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia on Tuesday, is one of communist Cuba’s largest financial backers – a reality Kyiv should condemn.
Maryan Zablotskyy – a member of Ukraine’s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada – revealed in a press conference alongside the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance on Thursday that Kyiv had had evidence indicating that Russia had recruited as many as 20,000 Cuban men to fight in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Less than half of them were identified as having chosen to participate in the war, many of them believed to have been swindled by false offers of employment in construction and other civilian activities.
The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance is a coalition of organizations, on the ground and in the diaspora, of Cuban pro-democracy, anti-communist activists. It has taken on a leadership role in exposing the Cuban Communist Party’s increasingly prominent role in the Ukraine invasion, including meeting Cuban fighters captured on the front lines with Ukraine.
Zablotskyy explained during last week’s press conference that, according to the General Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kyiv believes that the Castro regime has recruited about 20,000 Cuban nationals to fight in the Russian invasion. It has identified, the Argentine news outlet Infobae documented, 1,208 cases of Cuban mercenaries confirmed to be fighting alongside Russia, recruited between June 2023 and February 2024 alone.
Ukrainian intelligence officials have reportedly compiled evidence that the Cuban nationals include both men and women and have identified between 200 and 300 Cubans killed in the war. Zablotskyy described the Cubans on the battlefield as a “shocking” number: “No nationality except for the North Koreans, comes even close to the volume of combatants that Russia is now procuring [from Cuba].”
North Korea’s communist regime, which signed a mutual defense agreement with Russia last year and is closely allied with Cuba, confirmed that it had sent thousands of troops to the Ukraine war front in April.
The Russian government is not intending to hide the presence of Cubans on the battlefield, though the true number recently estimated is significantly higher than previously believed. On the Russian social network VKontakte, Cubans fighting for Russia flood their pages with pro-war propaganda, apparently intended for Russian audiences to see international solidarity with their cause, as the site is not popular in Cuba.
Gutiérrez-Boronat, who has interviewed captured Cubans in Ukraine, said during that press conference that there is evidence that Cuba “receives a bonus for every Cuban that goes to fight under Russian orders to Ukraine.” Speaking to Breitbart News, he noted that many of Ukraine’s allies in the European Union maintain close financial relationships with the Cuban communist regime, effectively funding the war effort.
Unlike North Korea, Ukraine formally maintains diplomatic relations with Cuba and the countries maintain embassies in their respective capitals. In Havana, Cuban dissidents were quick to pay visits and lay flowers to show solidarity following the Russian invasion, which resulted in brutal beatings and arrests. Cuban-Americans in Florida have also vocally supported Ukraine in its resistance to invasion.
In Kyiv, Gutiérrez-Boronat noted, the Cuban embassy remains existent but empty.
“I think Ukraine should demand that the EU stop funding the communist regime in Cuba, I think they need to insist,” he asserted.
“I think they should close their embassy in Havana, but far more devastating for the regime in Cuba would be for Ukraine to insist that EU stop funding through PDCA and Club of Paris,” he explained.
The PDCA, formally the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the E.U. and Cuba, was adopted in 2016 as a formal vehicle for expanding “dialogue” between Brussels and Havana, legitimizing the Castro regime. The Club of Paris is an older and more expansive institution established in 1956 to help impoverished nations manage outsized public debt. While many EU nations, and the United States, are in the Club of Paris, it also includes international members such as Israel and “ad hoc” participants such as China, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa.
In 2023, the Club of Paris sent representatives to Cuba to renegotiate a debt agreement and save it from default. That restructuring followed the full forgiveness of $8.5 billion in Cuban public debt in 2015 – money the Castro regime would go on to invest in the violent repression of its people.
Addressing Ukrainians receiving the information that thousands of Cubans are on the battlefield against them, Gutiérrez-Boronat told Breitbart News that Ukrainians should know Cubans “suffer under the same type of regime that Ukrainians suffer, that in an island that has been endowed with a bountiful nature, there is scarcity because of despotic Communist interference and control.”
“Cubans are going to Ukraine because of oppression, poverty, and in some cases indoctrination, but they must be resisted because they are helping the invader,” he added.
Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014 but expanded its belligerent activities in a full-scale invasion beginning in February 2022. It has heavily recruited international mercenaries, particularly after a failed mutiny by the leader of the Wagner paramilitary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his subsequent death in a mysterious helicopter crash in 2023. Only one nation, North Korea, has openly admitted to sending troops to help Russia’s invasion, though other nations such as India and Zambia, have documented the deaths of their citizens fighting for Russia in the conflict. If the numbers revealed on Thursday are verified, Cuba would be on par with North Korea regarding the number of its fighters actively participating in the invasion.
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