The fresh Facebook profile of numerous men whoever names and you will images meets brand new passports viewed by time mean that they rapidly offered ramshackle houses and you can kept their girlfriends, spouses, and you may young children to go out of for Russia. This new recruits’ personal-media accounts underscore the brand new difficulty of their lives in Cuba, which have listings asking getting medication and you will offering sets from phone parts to help you rationed animal meat into the black-market websites. “Toward money it is possible to pay me personally,” you to definitely Cuban guy said within the a video on WhatsApp handled so you’re able to Russian recruiters, “when the I am murdered or perhaps not, at least I will be capable assist my family.”
Throughout the weeks you to implemented, a blast of Cuban recruits started to get to Tula, with regards to the hacked data
“My dad decided to go to Angola,” one to son had written in a lengthy factor out-of their choice, referencing Cuba’s implementation in excess of fifty,000 “volunteers” to help you Angola and you can Ethiopia from 1975 so you’re able to 1991 to fight from inside the Soviet-backed conflicts. “All my male forefathers was in fact in certain war and that i require to follow along with all of them…I am aware the concept of cannon fodder and i also try not to care.”
On July 1, Russian trip Aeroflot first started performing head routes regarding the Cuban beach town of Varadero to Moscow. “We currently have fourteen individuals on choice area,” Maj. Anton Valentinovich Perevozchikov, a good Russian armed forces officer in the city away from Tula, had written inside the an email into the July 18. “Passport translations is urgently called for.” Brand new move seemed to last for about 30 days. “10 more folks are coming observe myself today,” the fresh new manager wrote toward Aug. 18. (Perevozchikov didn’t respond to TIME’s obtain feedback.)
In video clips distributed to Cuban mass media, recruits film themselves on an armed forces legs having the minds shaven from the Russian soldiers
Such emails and you can attached documents was in https://kissbrides.com/hr/njemacke-zene/ fact towards the Sept. 5 from the an effective Ukrainian activist hacker category named “Cyber Opposition UA,” that has in addition to removed responsibility with the latest leaks out of hacked characters regarding Russian political leaders. “The new Cuban regulators is trying to abdicate responsibility to possess giving the citizens so you’re able to conflict up against Ukraine,” the hacker group composed for the Telegram following the Cuban regulators generated the human being-trafficking allegation. “We’re going to ‘help’ the fresh new Cuban bodies to consider the issue and publish the new passports away from two hundred mercenaries.”
Go out was able to fits no less than 20 names into passports to societal-mass media profiles. A number of the photographs is photographs of its Russian migration cards, and that condition the cause of visiting the nation because “tourist.” Every arrivals appear to have flown with the Sheremetyevo Internationally Airport from inside the Moscow, where multiple advertised are met of the Cuban soldiers. In one photo viewed by-time, latest arrivals angle having a beneficial selfie within airport having a great other Cuban wear a military consistent towards the Russian flag area, offering an excellent thumbs-up sign.
The brand new recruits don’t hide the procedures, overall you are going to expect whenever they had been section of a keen undercover plan otherwise “trafficking” process. Specific changed the Myspace destination to “located in Moscow” and you can printed repeated photographs with landmarks and you can military hardware. Six images delivered to friends and you may viewed because of the Time inform you Cuban recruits posing inside the barracks or carrying firearms. In a single, Pedro Soto Hernandez, whose passport refers to your because a great 59-year-old local out of Granma, poses during the a great Russian military uniform, pulsating a leisure indication on the caption “por la madre patria.” (“On the motherland.”) You to recruit’s cousin told Big date she spoke so you’re able to their particular nephew nearly every single day, and that he had been however learning Russia.
However, following recruits’ implementation to Ukraine, the majority of new telecommunications appeared to quit, causing perplexed and regularly desperate texts away from relatives and buddies back home. “I wanted a number in which I can started to my buddy,” a lady titled Yanisleydy Hernandez printed with the July six. “The guy enlisted on the [Russian] Military.” Multiple recruits advised Cuban media one the phones was in fact removed from the Russian forces once they were implemented, pointing out safeguards concerns about are recognized because of the drones. Inside the a beneficial July 31 post released in the Cuban communities for the Facebook, an anonymous man said he had been not able to arrive at their buddy inside Russia to inform your his aunt got died home. “Please, cubanos, don’t let yourself be tricked because of the this type of not true pledges,” the man composed. “The trouble within the Cuba is actually bad, however, planning to a war isn’t good [better] alternative.”