EFE (via 14ymedio), Kiev, 16 March 2024 — The Ukrainian body that deals with prisoners of war warned this Friday of the high number of Cubans fighting with Russian troops in the war in Ukraine, and reproached the authorities of Havana for their tolerance of Russian recruitment operations on the Island.
“We see photographs and videos of the Russian side where many mercenaries from Cuba are seen,” said Petro Yatsenko, the head of the Ukrainian Committee for the Treatment of Prisoners of War. At a press conference held in Kiev, he warned of the growing number of mercenaries recruited by Russia from the so-called Global South countries.
Asked by EFE about the position of the Cuban Government in the face of Russia’s actions to attract Cuban citizens into the ranks of its Army, Yatsenko stated that Ukraine has no evidence of Havana’s official participation in this type of effort. “We cannot say that it is a (Cuban) state program, but we know that no one (in Cuba) opposes it,” said the Ukrainian official, who also said that “Russian agitators” work without restrictions in Cuba.
“We cannot affirm that it is a state (Cuban) program, but we know that no one (in Cuba) opposes it”
Yatsenko made these statements at a press conference in which eight prisoners of war from Nepal, Somalia, Sierra Leone and Cuba also participated, imprisoned by Ukrainian troops while fighting with Russian forces.
Darío Jarrosay, a Cuban prisoner of war, is a 35-year-old teacher and musician from Guantánamo. He said he had been attracted to Russia by a false offer on Facebook to work in construction, and he was then dragged to fight with the Russian Army on the fr