Cuban state security arrested self-proclaimed Christian activist Pablo Enrique Delgado Hernández this weekend for attempting to lay a bouquet of flowers at the Ukrainian Embassy in Havana, the Cuban independent outlet 14 y Medio revealed.
Delgado asserted that he attempted to gift the embassy flowers as a gesture of solidarity with the Ukrainian people, currently in the eighth year of an ongoing occupation by Russia that greatly escalated in violence last week after strongman Vladimir Putin announced the bombardment of multiple metropolitan areas in an effort to “de-Nazify” Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded directly to accusations of Nazism in an address to the Russian people last week, asking, “How can I be a Nazi? Say it to my grandfather, who fought in World War II as a Soviet infantryman and died a colonel in an independent Ukraine.” Zelensky is Jewish and lost family in the Holocaust.
The Cuban Communist Party has loudly supported Putin in his operations in Ukraine, asserting through its Foreign Relations Ministry that the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia is America’s fault. Cuba maintains relatively friendly relations with Ukraine, however, allowing it an embassy on Cuban soil, and has made generic statements of lament for Ukrainian civilians while asserting that Russia has a legitimate reason to assault their cities.
Given Cuba’s close ties to the Putin regime, Delgado’s flower delivery appeared to be treated as a gesture of dissidence, according to the 14 y Medio report. The outlet reported that Delgado was arrested following his attempt to deliver the flowers and taken to a police station where, he said, he received “many threats” to cease committing any actions that could be interpreted as political.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel shake hands during their meeting. (Alexander Nemenov/Pool Photo via AP)
Prior to his arrest, he said, Cuban regime agents “did not let me hang [a rose bouquet] on the fence, or put them on the floor, not even in front of a tree across from the embassy.” A Ukrainian embassy official reportedly had to come out and take the flowers to end the confrontation between Delgado and police.
“I told the diplomat that this gesture and these flowers brought with them the feelings of a great part of the Cuban people, who are convinced that, if the [Cuban] regime allowed people to express themselves, this Fifth Avenue [where the embassy is located] would be too small,” Delgado said. “Cubans understand that Ukraine is an aggrieved nation.”
Delgado told 14 y Medio he was arrested after handing the flowers to the embassy official and walking home.
The Ukrainian cause has reportedly become popular among Cubans, who continue to suffer extreme repression after 63 years of communist rule. Among the loudest opponents of Russia’s war in Ukraine in the country, 14 y Medio reported, are the family members of the prisoners arrested during the July 11, 2021, anti-communist protests, which reportedly attracted 187,000 people in nearly every municipality in the country. Cuba arrested an unknown number of people believed to total in the thousands on that day, including many children, and has been hosting mass trials of as many as 30 people at once and condemning them to decades in prison for calling for an end to communism.
According to 15 y Medio, the relatives of Andy García Lorenzo, a peaceful protester sentenced to seven years in prison for taking part in the July 11 manifestation, are calling the Ukrainian embassy in Cuba to “assert the solidarity of our family with the people of Ukraine and leave clear that the cowardly position of the Cuban government does not represent the feelings of this lovely people, lovers of peace.”
The Ukrainian embassy in Cuba announced on Monday that it had opened a new email account for Cubans to send messages of support because they were receiving so many calls from Cubans that Ukrainians attempting to call the embassy for official business were struggling to get through.
[2/4] Dado la extraordinaria cantidad de llamadas procedente de los amigos 🇺, los ciudadanos 🇺 que actualmente están en problemas, atrapados en los aeropuertos, sin poder reunirse con sus familias, no pueden comunicarse con nosotros para obtener alguna información oficial.
— UKR Embassy in Cuba (@UKRinCUB) February 28, 2022
At least one Cuban national, identified as baseball player Raidel Arbelay Becerra, is believed to be in Ukraine and seeking to find a role in supporting the country against Russia. According to the Spain-based Diario de Cuba, Arbelay fled with his family to Poland but has since crossed the border again to return to Kyiv and help fight.
“For my friends in Cuba who do not understand what is happening here in Ukraine, imagine if the provinces of Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba wanted to become part of the American military base in Guantánamo and they [the Americans] accepted,” Arbelay said during a social media live broadcast, according to Diario de Cuba, comparing the two Cuban provinces to Donetsk and Luhansk. “Would you be in favor of the Cuban government handing those provinces away?”
Putin announced last week that he would recognize Donetsk and Luhansk – where Russian proxies have been waging war on Ukraine for eight years – as sovereign states and invaded the rest of Ukraine using the Russian military on the grounds that those two “countries” had requested that Russia aid their defenses.
An armored personnel carrier burns and damaged light utility vehicles stand abandoned after fighting in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. (Marienko Andrew/AP)
The Communist regime’s Foreign Relations Ministry (Minrex) issued a statement supporting Russia after the attacks on Kyiv and other major cities began last week.
“The American insistence on continuing the progressive expansion of NATO towards the borders of the Russian Federation has led us to this scenario, with unpredictable implications that could have been avoided,” Minrex claimed, without addressing the prolonged Russian war in eastern Ukraine prior to last week. “History will demand accountability from the government of the United States for the consequences of an increasingly offensive military doctrine outside of the borders of NATO, which threatens peace, security, and international stability.”
Russia has also counted on other communist regimes in Latin America, most prominently Venezuela and Nicaragua, to support it. The vast majority of Western governments have issued statements in support of Ukraine.
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