Ukrainian lawmaker Maryan Zablotsky, the head of the Free Cuba Caucus of the Verkhovna Rada, announced on Tuesday his government was willing to free the four living Cuban mercenaries in its custody, and return the bodies of 41 others, in exchange for the communist regime liberating its own political prisoners.
Zablotsky made the announcement during a press conference in Miami, Florida, alongside members of the anti-communist Cuban diaspora and allies, organized by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. He noted that the Cuban government has made no efforts to contact Kyiv seeking information on the wellbeing of its citizens captured on the front lines fighting for Russia, making Havana’s claim that it has played no role in the recruitment from Cuban mercenaries to fight in Russia’s invasion difficult to believe.
The Ukrainian government published a list of 19 Cuban nationals imprisoned on the island for opposition to communism that it demands be released in exchange for the return of the mercenaries. Alternatively, Ukraine will accept Cuba intervening and successfully securing the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia in exchange for the Cubans.
Ukrainian government officials have estimated that as many as 20,000 Cuban nationals have been sent to the front lines of the Russian invasion to fight against Ukraine, potentially the largest contingent of organized foreign fighters participating in the conflict. This is particularly notable given that only one other country, North Korea, has admitted to sending fighters to aid the invasion of Ukraine.
The Communist Party has blatantly denied all evidence that it is helping Russia scam its citizens into fighting in the war, instead claiming that illicit “human trafficking” networks are luring Cubans with false job offers.
“The Cuban Government categorically reaffirms that Cuba is not part of the armed conflict in Ukraine, nor does it participate with military personnel there or in any other country,” the Cuban External Relations Ministry claimed in October.
Speaking at the press conference, Zablotsky clarified the offer and noted that releasing the Cuban mercenaries in Ukraine’s custody would require the aid of a third country, as Ukraine does not want to release them back to Russia, where they can be placed back in the war theater, and the Cubans do not want to go home.
“The Ukrainian government commits to free Cuban mercenaries and return the mortal remains of Cuban mercenaries who died in combat to their families in Cuba, and demands the liberation of 19 political prisoners on the island,” Zablotsky detailed, according to a press release sent to Breitbart News by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance.
“Contrary to other countries that have mercenaries that have attacked Ukraine and have been imprisoned, no Cuban diplomat has ever come to ask about the destiny of these men,” Zablotsky noted. “If the Cuban regime has not played any role in their recruitment, as it affirms, why abandon these men so radically? Only the Cuban resistance has shown any interest in these men and has come to visit us to ask about their status.”
In addition to the apparent abandonment by Cuba, the Ukrainian lawmaker observed that the government of Russia has also not claimed the Cubans, only seeking to repatriate its own nationals.
The Cubans themselves, he shared, do not appear enthusiastic about the prospect of returning to Cuba.
“Some of them have told us that this is the first time that they eat three times a day and they prefer to be in a Ukrainian prison than in Cuba,” he asserted. “We do not need them to be in our prisons and we do not need them to be fighting for Russia, either.”
The fate of the Cuban mercenaries in Ukraine became a topic of interest in the Cuban exile community last week after Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, the coordinator of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, traveled to Kyiv and met with them. Asked about their potential fate in the Ukrainian legal system, Gutiérrez-Boronat asserted that he did not know how Kyiv would address the situation but that the Cuban resistance would advocate against the death penalty for them, “although they should be tried because they committed a very grave error.”
During his visit, Gutiérrez-Boronat met with three of the four known Cuban mercenaries captured by Ukraine: Ernesto Michel Pérez Arbeláez, Frank Darío Jarrosay Manfuga, and Yusbel González Tuercos.” Jarrosay was the first Cuban the Ukrainian government revealed to have captured; a music teacher by trade, Jarrosay told the Ukrainians that he believed he had signed up for a construction job when he was dumped in the Ukrainian war theater. He was captured after running for cover into a Ukrainian trench, unable to tell the two warring sides apart, as he had not received any meaningful military training.
Following his return from Kyiv last week, Gutiérrez-Boronat accused Cuba of selling these men as “cannon fodder” for the war effort, asserting that the situation appears to involve a form of human trafficking.
Dragos Dolanescu, a Costa Rican politician and president of the Hemispheric Front for Liberty, said at the press conference on Tuesday that his organization will help to “seek a third country that can receive the Cuban mercenaries today imprisoned in Cuba.” Dolanescu suggested “some European or American country” as a potential destination for them.
In addition to facilitating the use of its citizens as cannon fodder, the Communist Party of Cuba is notorious for torturing, imprisoning, and killing political dissidents. The list of 19 political prisoners whose freedom Ukraine seeks to trade for the mercenaries include individuals known to have endured torture and inhumane conditions, such as artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Grammy-award-winning rapper Maykel Osorbo. Also on the list are several members of the Ladies in White organization, which is composed of the mothers, daughters, and other relatives of political prisoners and whose sole act of protest is attending Catholic Mass wearing white every Sunday. Many of those on the list were arrested in the aftermath of the historic July 11, 2021, protests calling for an end to the Castro regime.
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