The Russians promised work on construction: Kubinets told how he found himself in the war against Ukraine
He worked in the hospital in Cuba, earning about five dollars a week, so he agreed to work on the announcement, where he was offered a salary of 204 thousand rubles a month and a Russian passport, naively assuming that he would restore homes in Russia, damaged during the war, writes Daily Mail. Garcia said that when he arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, military trucks and his compatriot in military uniform were already waiting for him and other Cubans. "We were stuffed into the trucks.
I was scared, but it became clear that we had to obey their orders. We were given neither food nor water. After a long journey we got to an abandoned sports school, which was guarded by the armed police," - there, as Garcia told, they lived in Russian. The Cuban says he realized: he will return home, or "hero" or in the coffin. "I thought," My life is over ". Now I am fighting in a war that has nothing to do with me," the man recalls.
Then they found themselves at the military base where they were given weapons. Garcia reached the assault rifle - and it was the first time he was holding a weapon. According to him, he trained with Cubans, as well as with contractors from Asia and Africa for 30 days. "We regularly passed fire training on the field where moving goals appeared, and we had to knock them down. And we were taught to help ourselves if something happened to us or other soldier," he says.
Then Garcia and his comrades were sent to the forefront without any warning, because "Russia lost many soldiers daily. " "We were not allowed to show fear. The Russians told us that we should not feel pain or compassion and be like work on the battlefield. Commanders beat us on the nape of the neck and ribs with an example," the man recalls. Garcia joined the artillery brigade, where it was forced to wear heavy weapons, including a storm rifle, a portable grenade launcher and four grenades.
"I quickly realized that it was no longer a game, and my mission - to survive. In the beginning there were 90 cubes such as I, but more than half of them were killed in battle," he says. Garcia says he first saw Kamikadze drones and drones as such. He also saw how many Russian soldiers committed suicide. "The life of a soldier is very sad. It is to get drunk, eaten and walk in places where there is wi-fi to talk to my family and sometimes fight each other.
The only thing that helped me to endure all this is hope to see his family again," says Garcia, who was wounded twice. "After I got out, I was taken to the doctor. Every time I was absent on the battlefield for about a month before I was immediately sent back," the Cuban says. When asked if he shot himself from the Ukrainians, he confessed that he fired, but in "panic" and claimed that he "killed no one".
After serving a year at the Russian artillery brigade in Rostov, as well as in Donetsk region, Garcia received a medal, in October 2024 he was granted a two -month vacation. He used this time to develop an escape plan by finding a smuggler who claimed that he could safely deliver him to Greece for one million Russian rubles. Although Garcia received a salary on a monthly basis, he was not allowed to send money to his family in Cuba, so the money was in a Russian bank account.
He had just so much to cover the smuggler fee. He has been in six countries: from Belarus to Azerbaijan, then united by Arab Emirates and Egypt, before he finally come to Athens. He traveled by the Cuban Passport, and without applying for a Russian passport on the advice of a Russian commander, who warned him that if he became a Russian citizen, he would be doomed to fight until the end of the war. Once in Athens, he spent two months in the amygdalese detention center before he was released.
He is now sleeping in a tent in the Greek capital. "I sleep on the street and fight for survival. I would like to go back to my former simple life in Cuba, but I can't. I am also afraid that Russia will do with me for escape. I'm afraid of my life every day. But in Ukraine such as Garcia, they do not believe.
Maryan Zablotsky, a Ukrainian deputy analyzing the number of foreign recruits fighting for Russia, believes that Garcia is a threat to EU security, not a naive prostate who has been looking for work in Russia. "It can be very dangerous for the continent. He agreed to kill Ukrainians for $ 2500 a month. All these people whose existence in Cuba are awful, know what they are signed, but not realized how scary this war is," Zablotsky said.
Last week, Deputy Foreign Minister Cuba Carlos Fernandez de Cosio stated that Havana was "condemning" the Cuban mercenaries who were fighting on the side of Russia. "Our laws prohibit a citizen who is under our jurisdiction, to participate in the wars of other countries. In Cuba, this is punishable by law," he said. Despite the fact that the Greek authorities were warned that the Russian mercenary lived in Athens, she refused to comment.
For the first time, the world saw Cubans who were fighting on the side of Russia in August 2023, when two 19-year-old guys-Andorf Antonio Velazquez Garcia and Alex Roland Vega Dias-appeared in a video dressed in Russian military uniforms, and begged for help. Since then, no one, including their families, has heard nothing about them.
Ukrainian intelligence services analyzed the passports of the Cuban mercenaries who entered the Russian army, and found that the youngest of them is 18 years of age: this is Honder Raul Mena Alvarez-Buya and Alfredo Kamaras Benavides, both born in 2005. The oldest of the registered recruits is 62-year-old Reanery Robles, who died in battle and the average age of recruits is 36 years.
Frank Dario Jarrosai Manfuga, a 36-year-old musician, is the only famous Cuban mercenary who was captured by the Armed Forces. He said that he went to Russia, thinking that he would work on construction, but like everyone else, he found himself on the front line. He is stuck in a suspended state, as the Havana government also refuses to take it back.
At least 8425 foreign mercenaries from 106 countries fighting on the side of Russia have been installed in Ukraine, although the total number of them is much larger. "It is not their war. Russia recruits them not because they are elite fighters, but because they are cheap, one-time labor without any rights. Their death does not cause any reaction in Russian society. Therefore, Russian commanders do not value foreign mercenaries-they send them to the most dangerous.
Vitaliy Matvienko, the speaker of the project "I want to live", which calls on Russian soldiers to be captured. Matvienko adds: "I want to turn to anyone who thinks that he can solve his financial problems, fighting for Russia. This is a dangerous illusion. You will either kill or you will return disabled. " We will remind, earlier Focus wrote how a citizen of China got to Ukrainian fighters.