Russia recruits mercenaries in Cuba to fight in Ukraine under deception

A group of Ukrainian hackers leaked the passports of 189 Cubans who were tricked into joining the Russian army and fighting in the occupied areas of Ukraine. According to the testimonies of some of them, they were promised high salaries and made to sign a contract in Russian without explaining the conditions.

The vast majority of young Cubans are economic immigrants who were looking for an opportunity to improve their income. A good number of them worked in the fields or construction and received the lowest salaries on the island. When they were offered to earn in one month what they would earn in two years in their country, they accepted without hesitation. However, they did not know that they were going to be sent to a war zone.

The hacker group that operates for the Ukrainian army under the name “Cyber ​​Resistance” managed to infiltrate the recruitment network and obtain copies of the passports of the young Cubans. This is the largest group that traveled between the months of July and August, but they are not the only ones. According to the Ukrainian government, there are many more Cubans who have been recruited since the beginning of the conflict. “They use them as cannon fodder,” they denounced.

The network of recruiters was made up of a Cuban woman, a Russian translator and Cuban government employees, it has been confirmed. He also had the collaboration of Cuban army colonel Mónica Milián Gómez, Cuba’s military attaché in Moscow. According to Ukrainian intelligence sources, the Russian government coordinated with her the sending of Cuban mercenaries to the occupied areas.

They made them sign a document in Russian that committed them to fight in Ukraine for a year. They were given their passports in a few days, a process that usually takes months for any average Cuban. They were later transferred to Moscow and from there to the areas occupied by Russia since the February 2022 invasion.

Contracts signed

The young Cubans who were recruited by Russia to fight in the occupied areas of Ukraine received a tempting offer: almost $2,000 a month, more social and family benefits, and the possibility of accessing housing and a high pension if they renewed the contract. These conditions were the same as those offered to other mercenaries from ethnic groups and isolated areas of Russia. However, the Cubans did not know that they were signing their own death warrant.

Russian authorities warned them that if they defected or revealed confidential information, they would be punished with prison or death. The contracts were written in Russian and the Cubans had no way of understanding them.

A Ukrainian official told The Intercept that the Russian government was desperate for cheap labor to avoid a new mandatory draft in Russia. Furthermore, he said that the Russian government was not responsible for the injuries or deaths of the Cuban mercenaries.

Among the mercenaries registered by the Russian network there is one of Colombian nationality and several Cubans of different ages and provinces. Some shared photos of themselves on social media from Tula, a city near the training center.

In the Russian ranks, in addition to the Cubans, there are Syrians, Iranians, Serbs and Africans trained by the Wagner Group.

Two 19-year-old Cubans, Andorf Velázquez García and Alex Vegas Díaz, denounced in a video on Facebook that they were deceived by a Russian recruitment network to fight in Ukraine. They said they had been promised construction work, but when they arrived in Russia they took their passports and forced them to sign a military contract. When they refused to fight, they were sent to the rear with the condition of “sick” and without money to return to Cuba.

Several of the young Cubans posted photos on social media at Major Perevozchikov’s recruitment center in the city of Tula. Others took photos in front of a Russian supermarket.

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