U.S. Hypes More Baseless Claims Against Cuba
Marco Rubio’s State Department has informed Congress that up to 5,000 Cubans are fighting on Russia’s side in the Ukraine war, Axios reports.
“There are significant indicators that the regime knowingly tolerated, enabled, or selectively facilitated the flow” of Cubans to the Russian army, the report says, though it admits "the public record does not prove Havana officially dispatched all Cuban fighters.”
It’s not the first time the Trump administration has accused the Cuban government of sending mercenaries to Russia without providing any credible evidence. Last year, the State Department used this unsubstantiated allegationto lobby countries to vote against a UN resolution opposing the U.S. embargo on Cuba.
There are Cubans fighting in the Ukraine war, although it’s unclear how many (the source for the 5,000 figure seems to be Ukrainian intelligence).
Some of these Cubans say they were tricked into joining the war through promises of Russian passports.
Neither Ukraine nor the U.S. has offered any evidence to back their claim that the Cuban government is “enabling” or “facilitating” the enlistment of their citizens to the Russian army.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) released a statement last year calling the accusations that Cuba was involved in the war "slanderous."
Cuba, MINREX said, had taken steps to "neutralize recruitment" in Cuba, citing that, since 2023, Cuban courts had found 26 people guilty of mercenarism in Ukraine, with sentences ranging from five to 14 years in prison.
From mercenaries to medicare
The unsubstantiated accusations leveled by the Trump administration at the Cuban government are becoming increasingly far-fetched.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that Cuba is “running” a “racket” defrauding Medicare in Florida.
Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) released a statement calling the accusations “a new slander fabricated by anti-Cuban sectors in that country.”
The statement says the Cuban government has prosecuted several people in Cuba “involved in US Medicare frauds,” and that the U.S. government “has exchanged and coordinated with the Cuban Government the implementation of several joint actions on terrorism, legal assistance, commercial security, illicit trafficking in drugs, alien smuggling and migration fraud, cyber-crimes, money laundering and financial crimes.”