It was not immediately clear if the Cuban Foreign Ministry statement was related to the Ryazan article.
Russia, which has strong political ties to Cuba, has long been a major destination for Cuban immigrants trying to travel out of economic stagnation on the Caribbean island.
Earlier this year, the Russian and Cuban defense ministers discussed joint “military-technical” projects at a meeting in Moscow, but Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has denied any involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
recruited under deceit
The Miami newspaper América TeVe published last Friday the testimonies of two teenagers who were in Cuba when they were recruited under deceit by people who contacted them through Facebook to work as bricklayers in construction sites in Ukraine alongside the Russian army.
“Please help us, try to get us out of here as quickly as possible because we are afraid,” says one of the 19-year-olds in a video posted by the newspaper on its website.
América TeVe said that the young people sent this message from a bus in which they were transferred from Ukraine with Russian soldiers to the Russian city of Ryazan.
“We can’t sleep because we don’t know if at any moment they can come in and do something to us,” said another of the young men. They also denounced having been beaten.
This medium presented the anonymous audio testimony of another Cuban who also said he had signed a contract of this type. This man maintained that he traveled from Cuba to Russia and that he was able to see 18 other compatriots in the same situation.
A fourth person who said he signed the agreement living in Russia. “I am one more Cuban who is here under contract with the Russian armed forces,” the man told América TeVe under anonymity.
The latter pointed out that, like other of his compatriots, he enlisted to legalize his situation in Russia and said he was satisfied with the conditions.
With information from AFP and Reuters