Cuban Youth Mourns Father Killed in Ukraine Conflict

"Dad, I know you're watching me from that vast and distant sky... I love you, Dad." These heartfelt words were shared by a young Cuban on social media as he bid farewell to his father, Giovani Gómez Basulto, affectionately known as "el Chino." Gómez Basulto lost his life after enlisting in the Russian army to fight in the Ukraine war.

This emotional message underscores the void left by the war in Cuban families who never imagined saying goodbye to their loved ones on such a remote battlefield. "I hope one day I can become the man you were... I miss you, my old man," the young man expressed in a post, which included a video of his father wearing military attire.

Gómez Basulto, like many others from Cuba, joined the Russian ranks, enticed by promises of high wages and immigration benefits. However, he met his end in the trenches, leaving behind a son who now remembers him as his "guardian angel." Close family sources confirmed to CiberCuba that Giovani was among the Cubans who traveled to Russia as contracted soldiers, a trend that has surged since 2023.

Deceived Youth and Desperate Families

This family's tragedy is part of a larger narrative involving dozens of Cubans who have reported being recruited under false pretenses. In August 2023, two 19-year-olds, Alex Rolando Vega Díaz and Andorf Antonio Velázquez García, recorded a video from a Russian military base, disclosing that they were misled with promises of construction work and ended up in Ukrainian trenches.

"Everything has been a scam. We have no documents, and we haven't been paid. We are scared," they admitted, detailing torture and abuse. Their accounts shattered the silence, revealing a pattern later corroborated by Ukrainian intelligence leaks, showing more than 1,000 Cubans identified as mercenaries—some under 20 years old, others over 50.

Families like that of Michael Duro, who has been searching for his missing brother in the war for a year, depict a grim landscape, unaware of the whereabouts of over 600 Cubans, many trapped in a limbo between life and death.

The Cuban Government's Silence and Contradictions

Despite the scale of this tragedy, the Havana regime has responded with ambiguity. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied any involvement in sending citizens to war, yet acknowledged the existence of recruitment networks. Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío claimed these were "networks in Europe" and assured that Cuba has "denounced" this phenomenon.

However, investigative reports and statements from Russian officials reveal that many Cubans traveled directly from the island, signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, and were dispatched to the front lines. "There were only Cubans and Serbs," a soldier confessed to the Moscow Times.

Meanwhile, Cuban mothers plead for news, siblings write letters to foreign governments, and sons, like Giovani Gómez Basulto's, mourn on social media the loss of those who left seeking an escape from the island's crisis, only to become cannon fodder in a foreign war.

Caught Between Poverty and Conflict

The case of "el Chino" epitomizes the plight of a generation trapped between poverty in Cuba and the allure of a paycheck in Russia. With no future on the island and no legal emigration options, many accept contracts they don't understand, written in Russian, and face the horrors of war.

For his son, who now remembers him with tears and words of love, the cost is irreparable: "Never forget me, Dad, because the world may forget you, but your son never will for the rest of his life."