Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on Thursday his country rejects the participation of its citizens as mercenaries in war, contradicting a statement by Cuba’s ambassador in Moscow hours earlier saying his government did not oppose the legal participation of its citizens in Russia´s war in Ukraine.
The apparently conflicting statements follow Cuban state-run and foreign media reports suggesting that young Cuban men have enlisted in the Kremlin´s military in recent months as mercenaries and victims in alleged human trafficking schemes.
“The unequivocal and unswerving position of the Cuban government, in accordance with its national legislation, is contrary to the participation of Cuban citizens in conflicts of any sort and against mercenarism and trafficking in persons,” Rodriguez said on social media.
Last week Cuban authorities said they had arrested 17 people on charges related to a ring of human traffickers that allegedly had lured young Cuban men to serve in the Russian military amid the Ukraine conflict.
Cuban authorities said those fighting for hire as mercenaries or involved in trafficking could face long prison sentences or even the death penalty, depending on the severity of the crime.
Cuba´s top diplomat in Moscow, Julio Antonio Garmendia Pena, told Russia´s state-run RIA news agency hours earlier on Thursday that those arrested in Cuba, all Cuban citizens, had been engaged in illegal activities and had broken the law.
“We have nothing against Cubans who just want to sign a contract and legally take part with the Russian army in this operation. But we are against illegality and these operations that have nothing to do with the legal field,” RIA quoted the ambassador as saying.
Cuba did not respond to Reuters inquiry regarding the apparently contradictory statements.
Cuba’s foreign ministry said last week the human trafficking network that authorities were now working to “neutralize and dismantle” had operated from Russia “to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine.”
Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the matter.
Russia, which has strong political ties with communist-run Cuba, has long been an important destination for Cuban migrants seeking to escape economic stagnation at home.
Russian President Vladimir Putin last year signed a decree allowing foreigners signing up for service in the Russian army to receive citizenship via a fast-track procedure.
Cuba has denied any involvement in the war in Ukraine.
Cuba issues conflicting statements on use of its citizens in Ukraine war
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Cuba issues conflicting statements on use of its citizens in Ukraine war
- Cuba’s envoy in Moscow says Havana not opposed to citizens fighting for Russia in Ukraine if recruited legally
- FM Bruno Rodriguez says participation of Cuban citizens in foreign conflicts of any sort is against national law
Ukrainian woman searches for husband lost in action two years ago
- Families of missing soldiers draw hope from prisoner swaps
- Uncertainty on both sides of the war since Russia invaded
Holding up a photograph of Dmytro Pylnyk, lost in action in early 2023, she has many questions. What happened to his unit when it was ambushed by Russian forces? Was he captured by Russia? Could he eventually be released?
The mass prisoner swap last month was an opportunity for people like her to ask troops just out of Russian captivity about missing loved ones who they believe, or simply hope, are prisoners of war. The alternative is unthinkable.
“I hold out great hope that someone has heard something, seen something,” Pylnyk, 29, told Reuters at a recent exchange in May, flanked by other relatives of those missing in action.
“My son and I are waiting for (his) dad to come home. Hope dies last. God willing, it’ll all be okay and dad will come back.”
Precize numbers for soldiers missing in action are not made public.
For Ukrainians, and for Russians on the other side of the conflict, it can be hard to find out even basic information. Pylnyk says she has written to government agencies and Russian authorities and learned almost nothing.
Ukrainian officials say more than 70,000 Ukrainians have been registered missing since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. The majority are from the military but the figure also includes civilians.
Another 12,000 have been removed from the list after being identified among the dead or returned in exchanges.
Petro Yatsenko, a spokesman for the Coordination Council that arranges prisoner swaps from the Ukrainian side, said Russia had never notified Kyiv which soldiers it is holding prisoner. Ukraine collects that data by other means as best it can, he said.
Pylnyk and others like her share information in online chat groups and use it to try to piece together what happened.
“Misfortune brought us together,” she said. “After two years of this, we’re like a family.”
LAST PHONE CALL
Dmytro Pylnyk, an electrician by trade, was drafted into the army in late 2022. He phoned home often so that his wife did not worry but last called on their son Artem’s third birthday on Feb. 27, 2023.
He was deployed from Kharkiv region toward Bakhmut, a small city that later fell to Russian forces after fierce fighting.
His unit’s convoy was caught in a Russian ambush, Mariia Pylnyk said she had learned.
“The guys ran any which way,” she said, citing conversations with commanders who told her 41 soldiers were missing in action.
Two were captured and have since been released. One, who was freed in an exchange at Easter and had lost both his arms, was unable to share any valuable information, she said.
The second refused to talk.
The pace of prisoner swaps has increased in the last month.
Ukraine and Russia each released 1,000 prisoners in a three-day exchange last month, the only tangible outcome of direct talks in Istanbul.
A prisoner swap of under-25s on Monday was the first in a series of exchanges also expected to include each side repatriating the remains of thousands.
Mariia Pylnyk has given her son’s DNA to the authorities so that if Dmytro is confirmed killed in action they will be notified.
“We all understand that this is war and anything is possible. But to this day, I don’t believe it and I don’t feel that he is dead. I feel like he’s alive and God willing he’ll return,” she said.
NO SIGNAL TO CALL
She lives with Artem, now five, in Pakul, a village in the northern Chernihiv region that was briefly occupied by Russians. She has not told Artem his father is missing in action.
“He knows that dad is a soldier, dad is a good man, dad is at work and just doesn’t have any signal to call,” she said.
She takes comfort from seeing families reunited and never allows herself to cry in front of her son.
She used to work in a shop, but Artem has often been ill. The angst of the last two years have taken their toll on her health too. She receives state support.
Pylnyk has vowed to find her husband but has often not had time to attend prisoner swaps while looking after their son.
“Only a weakling can give up, you know, throw up their hands and say that’s it, he’s not there,” she said, adding that she was very emotional when she attended last month’s big exchange.
“When I was there, the fighting spirit awoke in me that I needed. I have to do this. Who else will do it but me?”
Los Angeles’ image is scuffed since ICE raids and protests, with World Cup and Olympics on horizon
- Los Angeles is still reeling from January’s deadly wildfires — and with the World Cup soccer championships and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon
- Mayor Karen Bass has been urging residents to come together to revitalize LA’s image. Instead, a less flattering side of Los Angeles has been broadcast to the world in recent days
LOS ANGELES: This isn’t the image Los Angeles wanted projected around the globe.
Clouds of tear gas wafting over a throng of protesters on a blocked freeway. Federal immigration agents in tactical garb raiding businesses in search of immigrants without legal status. A messy war of words between President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire and graffiti scrawled on a federal detention center building, while videos recorded the sounds of rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades hitting crowds.
In a city still reeling from January’s deadly wildfires — and with the World Cup soccer championships and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon — Mayor Karen Bass has been urging residents to come together to revitalize LA’s image by sprucing up streets, planting trees and painting murals so LA shows its best face to nations near and far.
“It’s about pride,” she’s said. “This is the city of dreams.”
Instead, a less flattering side of Los Angeles has been broadcast to the world in recent days. Protests have mostly taken place in a small swath of downtown in the sprawling city of 4 million people. As Trump has activated nearly 5,000 troops to respond in the city, Bass has staunchly pushed back against his assertions that her city is overrun and in crisis.
Bass, in response to Trump, said she was troubled by depictions that the city has been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals, and that now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming our federal agents. I don’t know if anybody has seen that happen, but I’ve not seen that happen.”
The series of protests began Friday outside a federal detention center, where demonstrators demanded the release of more than 40 people arrested by federal immigration authorities.
Immigration advocates say the people who were detained do not have criminal histories and are being denied their due process rights.
An international city
Much like New York, Los Angeles is an international city that many immigrants call home. The city’s official seal carries images referencing the region’s time under Spanish and Mexican rule. Over 150 languages are spoken by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. About half of the city’s residents are Latino and about one-third were born outside the US
Bass faulted the Trump administration for creating “a chaotic escalation” by mobilizing troops to quell protests.
“This is the last thing that our city needs,” Bass said.
Los Angeles resident Adam Lerman, who has attended the protests, warned that protests would continue if the Trump administration pushes more raids in the city.
“We are talking about a new riot every day,” Lerman said. ”Everybody knows they are playing with fire.”
It’s not the publicity LA needs as it looks to welcome the world for international sporting events on a grand scale.
“At this stage in the process, most host cities and countries would be putting the final touches on their mega-event red carpet, demonstrating to the world that they are ready to embrace visitors with open arms,” said Jules Boykoff, a Pacific University professor who has written widely on the political and economic impacts of the Olympic Games. The scenes of conflict are “not exactly the best way to entice the world to plan their next tourist trip to the US to watch a sports mega-event.”
A mayor under pressure
The federal raids and protests have created another dicey political moment for Bass, who has been struggling with a budget crisis while trying to recover from political fallout from the wildfires that ignited when she was out of the country.
She’s been careful not to discourage protests but at the same time has pleaded for residents to remain peaceful. The mayor will likely face backlash for involving the Los Angeles Police.
And she needs to fight the perception that the city is unsafe and disorderly, an image fostered by Trump, who in social media posts has depicted Bass as incompetent and said the city has been “invaded” by people who entered the US illegally. Los Angeles is sprawling — roughly 470 square miles (750 square kilometers) — and the protests were mostly concentrated downtown.
“The most important thing right now is that our city be peaceful,” Bass said. “I don’t want people to fall into the chaos that I believe is being created by the (Trump) administration.”
On Monday, workers were clearing debris and broken glass from sidewalks and power-washing graffiti from buildings — among the structures vandalized was the one-time home of the Los Angeles Times across the street from City Hall. Downtown has yet to bounce back since long-running pandemic lockdowns, which reordered work life and left many office towers with high vacancy rates.
Trump and California officials continued to spar online and off, faulting each other for the fallout. At the White House, Trump criticized California leaders by saying “they were afraid of doing anything” and signaled he would support Newsom’s arrest over his handling of the immigration protests.
If Los Angeles’ image was once defined by its balmy Mediterranean climate and the glamor of Hollywood, it’s now known “primarily for disaster,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney.
“A lot of perception depends on images,” Pitney added. Right now, the dominant image “is a burning Waymo.”
US defense department draws up rules on possible use of force by Marines deployed to LA protests
- 700 Marines will augment about 4,100 National Guard members already in LA
- President George H.W. Bush used the Insurrection Act to respond to riots in LA in 1992
WASHINGTON: The US Department of Defense was scrambling Monday to establish rules to guide Marines who could be faced with the rare and difficult prospect of using force against citizens on American soil, now that the Trump administration is deploying active duty troops to the immigration raid protests in Los Angeles.
US Northern Command said it is sending 700 Marines into the Los Angeles area to protect federal property and personnel, including federal immigration agents. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines are coming from Twentynine Palms, California, and will augment about 4,100 National Guard members already in LA or authorized to be deployed there to respond to the protests.
The forces have been trained in de-escalation, crowd control and standing rules for the use of force, Northern Command said.
But the use of the active duty forces still raises difficult questions.
The Marines are highly trained in combat and crisis response, with time in conflict zones like Syria and Afghanistan. But that is starkly different from the role they will face now: They could potentially be hit by protesters carrying gas canisters and have to quickly decide how to respond or face decisions about protecting an immigration enforcement agent from crowds.
According to a US official, troops will be armed with their normal service weapons but will not be carrying tear gas. They also will have protective equipment such as helmets, shields and gas masks.
When troops are overseas, how they can respond to threats is outlined by the rules of engagement. At home, they are guided by standing rules for the use of force, which have to be set and agreed to by Northern Command, and then each Marine should receive a card explaining what they can and cannot do, another US official said.
For example, warning shots would be prohibited, according to use-of-force draft documents viewed by The Associated Press. Marines are directed to de-escalate a situation whenever possible but also are authorized to act in self-defense, the documents say.
The AP reviewed documents and interviewed nine US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not yet public, about the guidance being determined for the Marines.
The Pentagon also is working on a memo with clarifying language for the Marines that will lay out the steps they can take to protect federal personnel and property. Those guidelines also will include specifics on the possibility that they could temporarily detain civilians if troops are under assault or to prevent harm, the first US official said.
Those measures could involve detaining civilians until they can be turned over to law enforcement.
Having the Marines deploy to protect federal buildings allows them to be used without invoking the Insurrection Act, one US official said.
The Insurrection Act allows the president to direct federal troops to conduct law enforcement functions in national emergencies. But the use of that act is extremely rare. Officials said that has not yet been done in this case and that it’s not clear it will be done.
President George H.W. Bush used the Insurrection Act to respond to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating Black motorist Rodney King.
If their role expands if the violence escalates, it is not clear under what legal authority they would be able to engage, said Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.
“If in fact those Marines are laying hands on civilians, doing searches, then you have pretty powerful legal concerns,” Goitein said. “No statutory authority Trump has invoked so far permits this.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tweeted late Saturday that he was considering deploying the Marines to respond to the unrest after getting advice earlier in the day from Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to one of the US officials.
Still, the tweet, which was posted to Hegseth’s personal X account and not to his official government account, caught many inside the Pentagon by surprise. As late as Monday, the military’s highest offices were still considering the potential ramifications.
But the Marine Corps were asking broader questions, too: Do they send more senior, experienced personnel so as not to put newer, less experienced troops at risk of potentially making a judgment call on whether to use force against a civilian?
What’s lawful under a domestic deployment — where troops may end up in a policing role — is governed by the Fourth Amendment in the US Constitution, which forbids seizure of persons, including temporarily restraining them, unless it could be considered reasonable under the circumstances.
Troops under federal authorities are in general prohibited from conducting law enforcement on US soil under the Posse Comitatus Act.
US deploys Marines to Los Angeles as police break up fourth day of protests
- Military forces previously deployed domestically for major disasters
- California files lawsuit to block National Guard deployment *
LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON: The US military will temporarily deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles until more National Guard troops can arrive, marking another escalation in President Donald Trump’s response to street protests over his aggressive immigration policies.
Tensions have been rising since Trump activated the National Guard on Saturday after street protests erupted in response to immigration raids in Southern California. It is the biggest flashpoint yet in the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to deport migrants living in the country illegally.
The announcement that marines would be deployed was made on the fourth straight day of protests. Late on Monday police began to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who gathered outside a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles where immigrants have been held.
National Guard forces had formed a human barricade to keep people out of the building. Then a phalanx of Los Angeles police moved up the street, starting to push people from the scene and firing “less lethal” munitions such as gas canisters. Police had used similar tactics since Friday.
The LAPD said late on Monday afternoon that some protesters had started throwing objects at officers and the use of less lethal munitions had been authorized, adding in an X post: “Less lethal munitions may cause pain and discomfort.”
California sued the Trump administration to block deployment of the National Guard and the Marines on Monday, arguing that it violates federal law and state sovereignty.
US Marines have been deployed domestically for major disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the September 11, 2001, attacks, but it is extremely rare for US military troops to be used for domestic policing.
For now, the Trump administration was not invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow troops to directly participate in civilian law enforcement, according to a US official speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon confirmed on Monday that a contingent of 2,000 National Guard troops would be doubled to 4,000. Trump said on Monday he felt he had no choice but to increase the level of force to prevent violence from spiraling out of control.
Trump also said he supported a suggestion by his border czar Tom Homan that California Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested over possible obstruction of his administration’s immigration enforcement measures. “I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great,” Trump told reporters.
Democrats said Trump’s decision to deploy military force to handle the protests amounts to an abuse of presidential power, and California’s lawsuit claimed it was illegal.
“The level of escalation is completely unwarranted, uncalled for, and unprecedented,” Newsom’s press office said on X.
Four days of protests
The protests so far have resulted in a few dozen arrests and some property damage, including some self-driving Waymo vehicles that were set ablaze on Sunday evening. The Los Angeles Police Department said five officers sustained minor injuries on Saturday and Sunday, as did five police horses used in crowd control.
Before the police intervention on Monday, several hundred protesters chanted “free them all” outside the Los Angeles federal detention facility where immigrants have been held.
“What is happening effects every American, everyone who wants to live free, regardless of how long their family has lived here,” said Marzita Cerrato, 42, a first-generation immigrant whose parents are from Mexico and Honduras.
Some in the crowd punched and tossed eggs at a Trump supporter at the event, while others fired paintballs from a car at the federal building.
Protests also sprang up in at least nine other US cities on Monday, including New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco, according to local news outlets.
The Trump administration has argued that Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration allowed far too many immigrants to enter the country and that Democratic-run cities such as Los Angeles are improperly interfering with efforts to deport them. Trump has pledged to deport record numbers of people who are in the country illegally and to lock down the US-Mexico border, setting a goal of at least 3,000 daily arrests.
Trump can deploy Marines under certain conditions of law or under his authority as commander in chief.
The last time the military was used for direct police action under the Insurrection Act was in 1992, when the California governor at the time asked President George H.W. Bush to help respond to Los Angeles riots over the acquittal of police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King.
More than 50 people were killed in the 1992 riots, which also caused some $1 billion in damage over six days.
Federal law allows the president to deploy the National Guard if the nation is invaded, if there is “rebellion or danger of rebellion,” or the president is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
RFK Jr. ousts entire US vaccine panel over alleged conflicts
- Kennedy, known for promoting vaccine misinformation, claims the committee had been compromised by financial ties to pharmaceutical companies
- Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor, fears Kennedy would pack the panel with "people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion"
WASHINGTON: US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday announced he was dismissing all current members of a key federal vaccine advisory panel, accusing them of conflicts of interest — his latest salvo against the nation’s immunization policies.
The removal of all 17 experts of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was revealed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed and an official press release.
Kennedy, who has spent two decades promoting vaccine misinformation, cast the move as essential to restoring public trust, claiming the committee had been compromised by financial ties to pharmaceutical companies.
“Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” he said in a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The public must know that unbiased science — evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest — guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”
In his op-ed, Kennedy claimed the panel was “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and had become “little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
He added that new members were being considered to replace those ousted — all of whom were appointed under former president Joe Biden.
ACIP members are chosen for their recognized expertise and are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest.
“RFK Jr. and the Trump administration are taking a wrecking ball to the programs that keep Americans safe and healthy,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in response.
“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who expressed concern about Kennedy’s track record during his Senate nomination but ultimately voted in his favor, wrote on X.
“I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”
“Fixing a problem that doesn’t exist”
The decision drew sharp criticism from Paul Offit, a pediatrician and leading expert on virology and immunology who served on the panel from 1998 to 2003.
“He believes that anybody who speaks well of vaccines, or recommends vaccines, must be deeply in the pocket of industry,” Offit told AFP. “He’s fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.”
“We are witnessing an escalating effort by the Administration to silence independent medical expertise and stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines,” added Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in a statement.
Once a celebrated environmental lawyer, Kennedy pivoted from the mid-2000s to public health — chairing a nonprofit that discouraged routine childhood immunizations and amplified false claims, including the long-debunked theory that the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine causes autism.
Since taking office, he has curtailed access to Covid-19 shots and continued to raise fears around the MMR vaccine — even as the United States faces its worst measles outbreak in years, with three reported deaths and more than 1,100 confirmed cases.
Experts warn the true case count is likely far higher.
“How can this country have confidence that the people RFK Jr. wants on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices are people we can trust?” Offit asked.
He recalled that during US President Donald Trump’s first term, several states formed independent vaccine advisory panels after the administration pressured federal health agencies to prematurely approve Covid-19 vaccines ahead of the 2020 election.
That kind of fragmentation, Offit warned, could happen again.
ACIP is scheduled to hold its next meeting at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta from June 25 to June 27.
Vaccines for anthrax, Covid-19, human papillomavirus, influenza, Lyme disease, respiratory syncytial virus, and more are on the agenda.
