Havana – A trafficking network that operates from Russia to recruit Cubans to participate “in war operations in Ukraine” was identified by the island’s authorities, who initiated criminal proceedings against people involved in this trafficking, the Foreign Ministry reported on Monday.
The Ministry of the Interior “is working on the neutralization and dismantling of a human trafficking network that operates from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez assured that the Cuban government “acts with the force of the law” against these operations, in a message on his account on the X social network, formerly Twitter.
The competent authorities initiated “criminal proceedings against people involved in these activities,” the statement said.
The Foreign Ministry clarified that Cuba is not part of the armed conflict in Ukraine and that it will act vigorously against those who participate in any form of human trafficking from its territory for the purpose of recruitment or “mercenarism” so that its citizens take up arms against any country.
The Miami newspaper América TeVe published last Friday the testimonies of two teenagers who were in Cuba when they were recruited under deceit by people who contacted them through Facebook to work as bricklayers in construction sites in Ukraine alongside the Russian army.
“Please help us, try to get us out of here as quickly as possible because we are afraid,” says one of the 19-year-olds in a video posted by the outlet on its website.
América TeVe said that the young people sent this message from a bus in which they were transferred from Ukraine with Russian soldiers to the Russian city of Ryazan.
“We can’t sleep because we don’t know if at any moment they can come in and do something to us,” said another of the young people. They also denounced having been beaten.
This medium presented the anonymous audio testimony of another Cuban who also said he had signed a contract of this type. This man maintained that he traveled from Cuba to Russia and that he was able to see 18 other compatriots in the same situation.
Source: Ambito
