Russia recruits up to 15,000 Cubans for propaganda purposes — HUR

HUR has confirmed the names of over a thousand Cubans who signed contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, he noted.

However, the actual number of recruited Cubans is significantly higher, according to him.

"We do not consider Cuban mercenaries as some separate military force that can influence the battlefield," Chernyak remarked.

"This figure could reach 10, 12, 15 thousand. This is a small number of people who were forced to sign a contract either by deception or through some other means."

The HUR believes that Russia views Cuba as a zone of its geopolitical interests, so the recruitment of Cubans into the Russian army is used more for propaganda purposes rather than military ones.

"They use this in the political arena, for the domestic consumer," Chernyak added.

"They are trying to show that Russia is not an aggressor, and that other countries of the, let's say, civilized world also support Russia's ideas and plans."

Cubans fighting against Ukraine and their relatives are being massively fined in Russia as illegal immigrants, the Russian publication Vyorstka reported in November 2025. Specifically, they even punish those who come to bury those killed in the war.

Cuban authorities "categorically reject" claims that their soldiers are participating in Russia's war against Ukraine on anyone's side. Havana has called these assertions, spread by the U.S. government and a number of media outlets since 2023, "false and slanderous."

The country does not have exact data on its citizens who have voluntarily participated or are participating in hostilities within the armies of either side, the Cuban Foreign Ministry stated.

They called it an undeniable fact that none of them act "on the initiative, with the support, or with the consent" of the Cuban state.