Cubans and Russians March in Havana

Cubans and Russians marched along an avenue in Havana on the occasion of Victory Day, which commemorates the triumph of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany in 1945, after President Miguel Díaz-Canel wished Moscow success in the conflict with Ukraine.

With flags of Russia and Cuba and carrying photographs of family members, hundreds of people marched for the first time along Fifth Avenue, a large artery in western Havana, to the Russian embassy.

The unusual demonstration was held one day after Díaz-Canel accompanied the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow in the Soviet victory parade against the Nazis in 1945, at the height of tensions with the Western powers due to the conflict in Ukraine.

During his stay in Russia, the Cuban president wished Moscow "success" in the war with Ukraine and condemned "the geopolitical manipulation carried out by the United States government and NATO's threat to approach the Russian borders," according to The Russian news agency TASS published.

The Democratic Concertation Front, a dissident organization in Cuba, said in a statement that it "strongly condemns" these statements by its president, appealing to the Constitution which, it affirmed, condemns "armed aggression and any interference or threat to the integrity of the State".

Díaz-Canel returned to Cuba from a four-day trip, in which he addressed the priorities of the bilateral agenda and participated in the Supreme Council of the Eurasian Economic Union, an organization formed in 2000 by five former Soviet republics, of which Cuba is an observer.

However, it was not publicly reported whether he discussed with Moscow the recruitment of Cubans to participate alongside the Russian army in the war against Ukraine.

The political relationship between the two old allies in the first decades of the Cuban revolution has been revitalized since November 2022, when the Cuban president met with Putin in the Russian capital.