It’s no secret that, as Russian troops get thinned in the Ukrainian front, the Kremlin has been depending more and more on mercenaries.
However, outsourcing work can sometimes be something of a pain in the neck, particularly if your temporal workers are trained in the use of firearms and combat tactics.
TVP World reports that, according to Ukrainian sources, Cuban mercenaries fighting alongside Russia’s 428th Motorized Rifle Regiment fighting in the Pokrovsk area of Donetsk.
The Cuban mercenaries allegedly executed the Russian commander over continuous and humiliating mistreatment, including beatings, and the withholding of payment.
Instead of taking action against the outsourced soldiers of fortune, the top brass of the Kremlin has supposedly relocated the Cuban mercenaries in the Rostov region, within the Russian Federation.
Meanwhile, the command of the Russia’s 428th Motorized Rifle Regiment have begged the General Staff to please exchange the Cuban mercenaries for Russian soldiers, something which has become increasingly difficult.
The life of a Cuban mercenary fighting for Russia in Ukraine isn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows, as a video released in April 2024 by The Daily Mail shows.
“This is a message for all the Cuban soldiers who are there in Ukraine “I've been here in the war for a while now, and we are not being paid”. “Many of my friends have already been killed in combat and they don't pay us what they said they would”, the Cuban mercenary adds.
This is hardly the only problem the Russian military have had with mercenaries since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Wagner Group, a private military company which The Guardian claimed that was doing the Kremlin’s dirty work for many years, rebelled against Putin in June 2023. Among other things, Wagner commander Evgeny Prigozhin demanded the dismissal of Russia’s Minister of Defense. Eventually, he claimed that the Russian invasion to Ukraine was founded on a lie. Although the mercenary uprising ended up neutralized by the Russian troops, it revealed the cracks of what was previously regarded as one of the Kremlin’s most reliable tools in the battlefield. A few months later, Wagner commander Evgeny Prigozhin perished in a very convenient plane crash, along with his second-in-command.
With the Cuban mercenaries, the situation is even more dramatic, despite the closeness between Moscow and Havana. In September 2023, many news outlets including Al Jazeera informed that the Cuban government had arrested 17 people involving in a human trafficking ring, recruiting young Latin men to fight in Ukraine. The Cuban government, headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel, denies involvement with the scheme of recruiting men from the island to fight in Ukraine. Cuban mercenaries sign a one-year contract where they get the equivalent of 2,000 US dollars when they join in and a bit more as a monthly salary, plus 15 days of vacation after working for the first six months. With a salary that hits around 100 times more than what an average Cuban worker makes, more than a few unemployed men are tempted to join in and fight in Ukraine rather than stay on the poverty-stricken island.
To make the deal even sweeter, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in 2022 a decree permitting foreign citizens to go through a rapid citizenship process if they sign up for military service. However, the question remains if Vladimir Putin can deliver everything that he has promised, including victory over Ukraine.
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About the Creator
Olaoluwa
Ola was born 24th May 2011
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Why Mānuka Honey Is So Expensive ?
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