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While the Cuban regime continues to deny its participation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a shocking fact emerges from the leaked list from the Ukrainian project “I want to live”: at least 118 Cubans over the age of 50 have been recruited by the Russian army to fight in the war.
Of them, three were over 60 years old at the time they signed their contract. They are not professional soldiers or ideological volunteers. They are parents, workers, retirees, unemployed individuals, born shortly before or after the so-called "Cuban Revolution," and carry the stigma of that era in one aspect or another of their lives.
They are part of a people anthropologically damaged by totalitarianism, victims of the brutal propaganda and indoctrination machinery built by the Castro regime to subjugate the population to its ideological dictates and socioeconomic impositions.
And they are, above all, members of that social segment that the Cuban regime exploited and left behind.
The reason: No future in Cuba, no option to emigrate
In today's Cuba, old age has become a period of extreme survival. More than 39% of retirees survive on minimum pensions of 1,528 pesos Cuban per month, equivalent to less than five dollars at the unofficial exchange rate.
This amount is insufficient to meet basic needs, forcing many elderly individuals to face a reality of scarcity and neglect. "In Cuba, there is no future", declared a Cuban mercenary in September 2023 to the news channel France 24.
The economic crisis has caused a chronic shortage of food, medicine, and essential services. Prolonged power outages and the lack of basic resources have exacerbated daily struggles.
Furthermore, the massive emigration of young people has left many elderly individuals alone, without the necessary family support to cope with these challenges.
In light of this situation, some older adults are forced to seek desperate alternatives for survival. The lack of opportunities and the need to survive in a hostile environment push them to consider unthinkable options, such as recruitment in foreign conflicts.
These individuals, invisible to the State but useful to external interests, represent a forgotten generation that, in the name of surviving in a hostile reality and a power resistant to change, takes the risk of enlisting in a foreign war and the moral burden that comes with killing or dying for money in pursuit of imperialist ambitions.
Who are they? An erased identity
To protect their integrity, CiberCuba does not publish their names. Some cases (3) appear in the leaked list as men aged between 60 and 63 years at the time of their recruitment.
The "I Want to Live" list includes the names of 118 Cuban mercenaries recruited by Russia, aged between 50 and 60 at the time of signing the contract.
Among these mercenaries, mostly Cubans without relatives abroad and with limited opportunities to emigrate and integrate into new job markets due to their ages, there are cases that illustrate the magnitude of the tragedy, such as Raúl A. M., who was recruited in January 2024 at the age of 53 and is listed as deceased just one month later.
Or that of Reynerio D. V., recruited in September 2023 at the age of 61 and passed away in May 2024. Or that of Iván G. C., who was 58 years old when he signed the contract with the Russian army in December 2023, and is listed as deceased in January 2024, less than a month after enlisting as a mercenary.
Lázaro Aramis P. R. is another of the Cubans over 50 years old who lost their life just a month after being recruited, indicating the limited training of these mercenaries by Russia. Lázaro Aramis signed his contract at the end of January 2024 at the age of 55 and passed away in mid-February.
Luis Ángel R. L. accompanies you in this sad selection. He signed his decision to join the invading troops in December 2023, at the age of 50. Less than a month later, this Cuban was added to the list of those who lost their lives in the imperialist war led by Vladimir Putin, supported from Havana by Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Marked by poverty, misinformation, and a lack of opportunities, these Cubans fell victim to mafia schemes that operated and continue to operate in Cuba with the regime's consent. In Cuba, they were no longer useful to the system; in Russia, they are cannon fodder.
The moral cost: Who takes responsibility?
The recruitment of older men for an armed conflict violates basic principles of humanitarian law. This is even more concerning if it is confirmed, as the evidence suggests, that they were deceived or coerced by their circumstances of misery.
The Cuban regime, instead of protecting its most vulnerable citizens, has left them at the mercy of foreign military recruiters. Without repatriation agreements. Without diplomatic defense. Without even a recognition.
The recruited senior citizens did not leave to fight Putin's war. They left because the war against hunger and despair was already lost for them in Cuba. And they accepted the unthinkable: to risk their lives in a country they do not know, for an army that will treat them as disposable.
This article is the portrait of a generation that grows old bearing the weight of the entire island on its shoulders. And yet, even so, it ends up in a trench, under snow and shrapnel, far from home.
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