Cubans recruited for the war said that they were offered a job by an employee of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Eight Cubans said that before they were recruited to fight in Ukraine, they communicated with Vladimir Shkunov, a leading researcher at the Volga region branch of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a member of the Government Expert Council. attention to the material from Cubanet . drew “Important Stories”

Shkunov also administers the “Russia for Cubans” group on Facebook and heads the Ulyanovsk regional branch of the Russian Society for Friendship with Cuba. According to Fidel Hernandez, the Russian offered him a “good job” and said that he was looking for “young construction workers.” Later, Shkunov asked the Cuban if he would like to join the army.

“At first he told me it was a construction project. Then I sent him my details, and about a week later he wrote to me again asking if I was ready to join the army. He said they would pay me well and I agreed,” Hernandez added. Due to the dissemination of information about the mass recruitment of Cubans, he has not yet been able to fly to Russia, but plans to do so, since “the main thing for him is to get out of here.”

According to Cubanet , the Cubans who were planning to be recruited for the war in Ukraine or were recruited had previously undergone military training in the Cuban army. In addition, they all attended a conversation about friendship between Cuba and Russia proposed by the Cuban military. “They all said that they first contacted their recruiters on the island and in Russia through Facebook; they did this under the guise of an employment contract for construction work,” the publication reports.

In early September, Cuban authorities arrested 17 people believed to be involved in the recruitment of local citizens into the Russian army. Cuban Interior Ministry Colonel Cesar Rodriguez said that the leader of the group of human traffickers collaborated with two people living on the island to recruit Cubans for the war.

Prior to this, the Cuban Foreign Ministry announced the discovery of a “human trafficking” network, whose participants forced Cuban citizens to fight against Ukraine. The department emphasized that Cuba will confront anyone who “participates in any form of human trafficking for the purpose of recruitment or mercenary work.” Mediazona told one of these stories .

Today, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov did not directly answer questions about the recruitment of Cuban citizens. “The fact that we maintain relations and dialogue with our friends in Havana - in all possible areas - is really so,” Peskov said.