Cuban Volunteers Join Russia’s War Effort in Ukraine, Seeking Economic Relief

She said her 49-year-old husband Enrique Gonzalez, 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, he wired her part of his signing-on bonus of about 200,000 roubles ($2,040) which she received in Cuban pesos, Cervantes told Reuters.

That represents a windfall on the economically stricken communist-run island. It’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 pinch more than La Federal, a community of about 800 people on the outskirts of Havana where one in four residents are 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 home in anticipation of going, she said.

“You can count on one hand those who are left,” the 42-year-old said as she surveyed the street from a small terrace where she’d repurposed two broken toilet bowls as flower pots.

“Necessity is what is driving this.”

Reuters traced the stories of those four men, together with more than a dozen other Cubans recruited to go to Russia from districts in and around the capital Havana, ranging from a builder and a shopkeeper to a refinery worker and phone company employee. Eleven of the men ended up flying to Russia while the other seven got cold feet at the last moment.

Interviews with many of the men plus friends and relatives, together with a trove of WhatsApp messages, travel papers, photos and phone numbers they provided to corroborate their accounts, paint the most detailed picture yet of how Cubans are flocking to shore up Moscow’s war machine.

The Kremlin and Russian defence ministry didn’t respond to queries about Cubans being recruited for their military. The Cuban government also didn’t respond to queries for this article.

News of Cubans ending up in the Russian military hit headlines this month when the Havana government – a longstanding ally of Russia that says it is “not part of the war in Ukraine” – said it had arrested 17 people connected with a human-trafficking ring that lured Cubans to fight for Moscow. Reuters could not establish the identities of those involved in the alleged trafficking ring and when or whether they were arrested.

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

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

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

Gonzalez said the 119 Cubans there were being trained to fight in the war, though still wasn’t clear where they’d be sent.

“I have several friends in Ukraine, and they are in places where bombs are falling but they haven’t been in confrontations with Ukrainians,” he added. “Everything is good here, but when we go there, we will be in a war zone.”

Reuters was unable to contact any of the other men who joined the military, though confirmed via WhatsApp messages and photos that they had flown to Russia and two are now in Crimea.

Contacted for comment on the recruitment of Cubans into the Russian military, Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said: “I can confirm that the Ukrainian embassy in Havana has reached out to the Cuban authorities on this matter.”

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