Special Report: How Cubans Were Recruited to Fight for Russia

LA FEDERAL, Cuba, Sept 30 (Reuters) – Cuban seamstress Yamidely Cervantes bought a new sewing machine for the first time in years, as well as a refrigerator and a cell phone, all with money from Russia.

She said her husband Enrique González, 49, a struggling bricklayer, left their home in the small town of La Federal on July 19 to fight for the Russian army in Ukraine. Days later, she transferred part of her signing bonus of about 200,000 rubles ($2,040), which she received in Cuban pesos, Cervantes told Reuters.

That represents a windfall for the economically battered communist-ruled island. That’s more than 100 times the average monthly state salary of 4,209 pesos ($17), according to the national statistics office.

Few places feel the pressure more than La Federal, a community of about 800 people on the outskirts of Havana where one in four residents is unemployed, government data for 2022 shows.

On the 100-meter dirt road where Cervantes lives, at least three men have left for Russia since June, and another had sold his house in anticipation of his trip, he said.

“You can count on one hand how many are left,” said the 42-year-old woman as she looked out over the street from a small terrace where she had reused two broken toilets as flower pots.

“Need is what’s driving this.”

Reuters tracked the stories of those four men, along with more than a dozen other Cubans recruited to go to Russia from districts in and around the capital, Havana, from a builder and a merchant to a refinery worker and a clerk. from a telephone company. Eleven of the men ended up flying to Russia, while the other seven backed out at the last minute.

Interviews with many of the men, as well as friends and family, along with a trove of WhatsApp messages, travel documents, photographs and phone numbers they provided to corroborate their accounts, paint the most detailed picture yet of how the men Cubans are flocking to prop up Moscow’s war machine. .

The Kremlin and the Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to questions about recruiting Cubans for their army. The Cuban government also did not respond to queries for this article.

News of Cubans ending up in the Russian military made headlines this month when the government in Havana – a former ally of Russia that says it is “not part of the war in Ukraine” – said it had 17 people were arrested connected with a Network trafficking that attracted Cubans to fight for Moscow. Reuters was unable to establish the identities of those involved in the alleged trafficking ring and when or if they were arrested.

The recruits identified by Reuters volunteered to go to Russia to work for the army following overtures on social media from a recruiter who identified himself as “Dayana.” At La Federal, for example, the nine recruits identified by Reuters enlisted to fight in the war. In Alamar, an eastern suburb of Havana, most of the five men signed up for non-combatant roles, such as construction, packing supplies and logistics.

Cervantes’ husband, González, speaking by video call from a Russian military base on the outskirts of the city of Tula, south of Moscow, told Reuters that he was one of 119 Cubans training there. When he arrived in Russia, he said, he had signed a contract to work for the army, translated into Spanish.

“Everyone here knew what they were coming for,” he said, smiling in military fatigues as he gave Reuters a digital telephone tour of the camp, surrounded by pine trees. “They came for war.”

González said the 119 Cubans there were being trained to fight in the war, although it was not yet clear where they would be sent.

“I have several friends in Ukraine and they are in places where bombs fall, but they have not actually been in confrontations with the Ukrainians,” he added. “Everything is fine here, but when we get there, we will be in a war zone.”

Reuters was unable to contact any of the other men who joined the army, although it confirmed through WhatsApp messages and photographs that they had flown to Russia and that two of them are now in Crimea.

Contacted for comment on the recruitment of Cubans into the Russian army, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said: “I can confirm that the Ukrainian embassy in Havana has been in contact with the Cuban authorities about this affair”.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said the United States was closely monitoring the situation. “We are deeply concerned by reports alleging that young Cubans have been deceived and recruited to fight for Russia,” the spokesperson said.

DAYANA WITH CAMOUFLAGE CAP

The Cuban recruiting activity identified by Reuters began weeks after a decree issued in May by President Vladimir Putin that allowed foreigners enlisting in the military on one-year contracts to receive Russian citizenship through a fast-track process, along with with their spouses, children and parents. .

In La Federal, news of the army’s work began to spread in June, according to the residents interviewed. Offers to join, shared across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, became the talk of the town, with Dayana named as a contact.

More than two dozen young people interviewed by Reuters in and around Havana spoke of the magnitude of the exodus.

Cristian Hernández, 24, laughed when asked how many people had left the area around La Federal. “A lot of people,” he said. “Almost all of our friends have gone there.”

Yoan Viondi, 23, who lives a few minutes’ bike ride from the main street, said he knew that about 100 men in Villa María, the district that includes La Federal, had been recruited for the Russian war effort since June.

He said a friend gave him the WhatsApp contact of Dayana, a Cuban woman who he said bought plane tickets for recruits. Dayana was also mentioned as a key contact by most of the recruits and family members Reuters spoke to.

Viondi wasted no time.

“Hello, good afternoon,” Viondi told him in a message on July 21, seen by Reuters. “Please I need information.”

Dayana, who appears on her chat icon as a dark-haired woman wearing a camouflage cap, responded with the contract terms almost instantly, according to the timestamps. The first line of the message reads: “This is a contract with the Russian military through which you receive citizenship.”

The contract was for one year and offered a signing bonus of 195,000 rubles followed by a monthly salary of 200,000 rubles, plus 15 days of vacation after the first six months of work.

Those terms are in line with those conveyed to Reuters by other recruits and their families.

“If you agree, you just have to send (a copy of) your passport,” Dayana’s message said.

Within two minutes, Viondi sent him a digital copy of his passport. An hour later, Dayana responded in an audio message heard by Reuters: “Perfect, tomorrow I can tell you what day you will travel,” she said.

Reuters was unable to reach Dayana for comment on the number used by Viondi and others, or to confirm her full name.

I WILL NOT DIE OF HUNGER

In the end, despite his initial enthusiasm, Viondi became anxious about going to Russia and cut off contact with Dayana. He highlighted that the people who signed up for La Federal knew they were going to fight.

“It’s hard to live here. Everyone said, ‘If I choose this, I won’t die of hunger in Cuba,'” he said. “But they knew where they were going. I also knew perfectly well where I was going.”

Viondi told Reuters that neither Dayana nor anyone else had asked him to keep their interactions secret.

He said he maintained contact with at least four friends who had signed contracts in Russia with the military and that, as far as he knew, “they were doing well.” Most, he said, are now in Ukraine.

Cuba is mired in its worst economic crisis in decades, with long lines even for basic goods such as food, fuel and medical care, which has caused a Exodus of Cubans to the United States, Latin America and Europe last year.

Alina González, president of a neighborhood committee of La Federal in charge of mobilizing support for the communist government, recalled the enthusiasm aroused by Russian military work.

Many men took advantage of the opportunity in his neighborhood, he said, including his nephew Danilo.

“The one who lives there? He left with his wife and two children. That one over there, with his wife. And someone else’s mother lives further down,” he said.

Roberto Sabori told Reuters that many of the men who left, including his 30-year-old son Yasmani, had done so in a hurry, keeping their plans secret even from their families.

“I heard he was leaving the same day he left,” said the 53-year-old, who lives around the corner from González, adding that his son had called him as he was preparing to board a flight from the resort town. from Varadero to Moscow.

“He never told me anything.”

‘MOMMY, I CAN’T STAND IT’

Cervantes, the seamstress at La Federal, remembers the desperation that her husband González, now in Russia, had felt in the months before her departure. “Work, work, work,” she said of her life. “One day she told me: ‘Mommy, I can’t take it anymore.'”

“One day he told me: ‘I’m going to Russia.’ He showed me the photocopy of his passport, and he had the ticket and everything. That was on the 17th (of July) and he left on the 19th.”

While Cervantes chose to stay behind, Reuters confirmed through WhatsApp photos and videos that at least three of La Federal’s wives had reunited with their husbands in Russia, as well as at least one child.

Cervantes said that his cousin, Luis Herlys Osorio, had enlisted in the Russian army weeks after her husband’s departure, and that his wife, Nilda, was also now in Russia: “She went, and so did many of the women of the neighborhood”.

Reuters reviewed photos on social media of Nilda, with two other La Federal wives, in a rented house in the western Russian city of Ryazan. Osorio is in Crimea, Cervantes said.

Cuba has sent mixed messages this month about its citizens fighting for Russia.

On September 8, when he announced the arrests of the trafficking ring, he also said that it was illegal for his citizens to fight for a foreign army, punishable by life in prison.

However, days later, Cuba’s ambassador in Moscow said that Havana was not opposed to the Cubans “who only want to sign a contract and legally participate with the Russian army in this operation.” Within hours, Cuba contradicted its envoyreiterating that Cubans were prohibited from fighting as war mercenaries.

González objects to being called a mercenary. The former bricklayer, who had received his Russian passport, compares his decision to fight with Russia to that of Cubans who fought in a Soviet-backed war in Angola in the 1970s.

In that war in southern Africa, widely seen as a proxy Cold War conflict, Cuba deployed tens of thousands of troops to fight for a Moscow-backed communist guerrilla group against a rival U.S.-backed anti-communist movement.

“I’m following their example,” González said of Cuban fighters in Angola, adding that Moscow had been a staunch ally of Cuba for decades and that the Soviet Union had provided economic aid to the island.

“Russia helped support my family.”

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