Cuba says it’s dismantling human trafficking ring sending Cubans to fight for Russia in Ukraine

Following dramatic accounts by alleged victims on social media, Cuban authorities said they are working to dismantle a human trafficking network coercing Cubans to join the Russian military to fight against Ukraine, according to Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The government Sunday said its Ministry of the Interior detected the network and was working to “neutralize” it, adding that “criminal proceedings have been initiated against those involved in these activities.” The statement does not provide any details on the cases but said that the ring had targeted Cubans residing in Russia and living on the island.

The announcement came after two 19-year-old Cubans, identified as Andorf Antonio Velázquez García, from Havana, and Alex Rolando Vega Díaz, from Santa Clara, told a Cuban influencer last week that, desperate to leave the island, they had been scammed and lured to Russia under false pretenses, ending up sleeping in a trench in Ukraine along Russian forces.

They said that “friends” in Cuba provided them with the contact of a Cuban woman who offered them a contract to do construction work in Russia. Members of the ring, which included at least two other Russian women, they said, sent them a contract in Russian they were told not to translate and bought them a ticket to fly from Varadero to Moscow. Cubans do not need a visa to travel to Russia.

“I couldn’t stand it in Cuba, that’s why I was dying to leave; I had to help my family some way,” Velázquez García told Alain Lambert Sánchez, known in social media as Alain Paparazzi Cubano, a Cuban influencer who now lives in Miami.

The young men told Lambert that once in Russia, a Russian woman seized their passports, and they took a citizenship test they thought was used to get fake Russian documents on their behalf. They never got the money promised. Instead, they ended up in a unit in Ryazan, a city in Central Russia, where they passed military training. They were later sent to a place in Ukraine they could not locate but described as a forest 60 miles from the front lines When they got sick, they were taken to several hospitals and later returned to the Ryazan unit.

“What is happening in Ukraine is ugly,” Vega Díaz said. “It is hard to see people with their heads open before you, to see how people get killed. We slept six meters underground and could not sleep well because you could feel the bombs falling next to you; you heard the shots.

“From my heart, I tell all Cubans who plan to come here not to come. It is crazy here,” he added.

Neither Velázquez García nor Vega Díaz speak Russian. At some point, they were beaten for speaking English to Russian soldiers, they said.

“They took all our clothes off, and they beat us because, since we don’t understand each other, we spoke to them in English, and they said that the Americans had sent us here, that we had to confess,” Velázquez García told local Miami TV station America TV.

The young men said they saw other Cubans in their military unit, and some were sent to fight in the front lines in Ukraine. They also said they believed the same ring had recruited many Cuban passengers on their flight to Moscow.

It is unclear if some of the Cubans they encountered were migrants living in Russia who had voluntarily joined the Russian military seeking a swift path to citizenship, as the Miami Herald previously reported.

The Moscow Times, an independent Russian news outlet, said it spoke to a woman identified as Elena Shuvalova, who posted content on Facebook offering Cubans a one-year contract with the Russian army and a monthly salary of 204,000 rubles — around $2,082. She admitted to the publication that she helped arrange contracts for “illegal migrants.” She declined to say if she worked for the Russian Ministry of Defense.

America TV said they also exchanged messages with a woman named Elena, whom Velázquez García and Díaz Vega identified as a member of the ring. She said their accounts were false.

Though the two young Cubans did not say the Cuban government was involved in what happened to them, the case sparked speculation that Cuban authorities, who support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, might have been sending mercenaries to aid the Russian military.

Cuba’s foreign ministry strongly rejected such claims, calling them “distorted information” spread by “Cuba’s enemies” to tarnish the country’s reputation.

“Cuba is not part of the war in Ukraine,” the ministry said. “It is acting, and it will firmly act against those who within the national territory participate in any form of human trafficking for mercenary purposes or recruitment purposes so that Cuban citizens may raise weapons against any country.”

The statement does not say if the government is providing help to the alleged victims of human trafficking.

Velázquez García and Vega Díaz said they were too scared to desert the Russian army because they had been threatened with 30-year imprisonment.

“Please, help us, get us out of here; we just need you to help us out of here,” the two said in one of the videos.