14ymedio, Havana, February 17, 2024 — The mother of Raibel Palacio Herrera, a 21-year-old Cuban recruited by Russia who died last week in Jerson, in southern Ukraine, said that her son was used as “cannon fodder” by the Russian Army. Interviewed by the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Danelia Herrera, a resident of Havana, said that Russia will “kill everyone” who, like her son, traveled to Moscow in search of better living conditions and ended up enlisting in the invading troops.
Palacio was hit by a Ukrainian drone while trying to make a tourniquet to contain the bleeding of a leg wound, the WSJ says. Herrera’s mother, who lives in precarious conditions in a “wooden room” on the outskirts of the capital, vividly remembers his recruitment.
The young man and three other neighbors – his friends – boarded a flight to Russia in November looking for a way to “leave the poverty of the Island.” The selfies that the four Cubans took attest to the “enthusiasm” they felt for the trip. He was offered $2,200 in monthly salary, says the woman, an amount that the young man could never have dreamed of earning on the Island.
His death is the first death of a Cuban in the war against Ukraine that has been documented so far
“After five months, they were going to give him a passport and citizenship for me,” said Melisa Flores, his partner from Palacio. His death, confirmed last Tuesday by the Univision network, is the first death of a Cuban in the war against Ukraine that has been documented so far.
Cited by the WSJ, diplomat Ruslan Spirin, Ukraine’s representative in Latin America and the Caribbean, estimates that there are 400 Cuban soldiers in the service of Russia. “We take that matter very seriously,” Spirin said. Other sources, the newspaper points out, calculate higher numbers. One who does so is the Ukrainian