A 19-year-old Cuban accepted a job offer he received on WhatsApp to do construction work but ended up in the trenches in Ukraine, per Time.

A Cuban teenager unwittingly found himself on the front lines of the war in Ukraine after accepting a job offer he received on WhatsApp to do “construction work” for the Russian military, according to Time magazine.

Alex Vegas Díaz, 19, and a friend were taken to a military base, outfitted with weapons, and then sent to fight, according to Time, which reviewed social media footage posted by Vegas Díaz.

In one of the videos, dated August 31, which went viral, Vegas Díaz can be seen in a Russian hospital recovering from an unspecified illness. According to Time, he said he was due to be sent back to the front upon recovery.

From his hospital bed, he pleaded to “help get us out of here,” adding: “What is happening in Ukraine is ugly—to see people with their heads open before you, to see how people are killed, feel the bombs falling next to you.”

According to Time, Vegas Díaz said in one video: “There are dead Cubans, there are missing Cubans, and this is not going to end until the war is over.”

He added: “We know that Cuba is aware and our advice to Cubans is not to come here. This is the craziest thing. Crazy. Don’t do it.”

Time reported that Vegas Díaz became part of a large operation that openly recruited hundreds of Cubans to join the Russian army to fight in Ukraine.

According to the magazine, the recruitment effort involved adverts for job contracts with the Ministry of Defence in Russia that began to appear on Cuban Facebook groups in June.

It said that recruits were offered 204,000 rubles, or $2,120 US dollars, to sign up.

Average monthly salaries in Cuba are dramatically lower, making it an enticing prospect.

Time reviewed the job contracts, which it said required a one-year commitment, but came with an enlistment fee and a payout for the families of recruits if they are killed in action.

The exact number of Cubans recruited through this initiative remains uncertain, with estimates provided to Time ranging from hundreds to more than a thousand

Though Cuba’s foreign ministry described the recruitment effort as a “human trafficking network,” four Cuba experts and former US officials expressed skepticism to Time

They said that the Cuban government, a long-standing ally of Russia, may be using such language to maintain the appearance of a neutral stance in the Ukraine conflict, Time reported.

Regardless of the nature or provenance of the recruitment drive, there is concern in the US that recruits such as Vegas Díaz may have been deceived into accepting job offers.

The State Department said in a statement provided to Time that “we are deeply concerned that young Cubans may have been deceived and recruited to fight for Russia in its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and we continue to monitor this situation closely.”

The US State Department did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

  • @popcap200@lemmy.ml
    52•1 year ago

    It feels weird to compare Putin to bush given the probable genocide going on. Murdering whole villages, raping babies, shipping kids back to Russia to brainwash them, forcing fake elections to annex territory, purposefully causing international crisis by limiting the export of food, and purposefully blowing up dams. Bush and Putin are incomparable.

    Bush and Cheney deserves prison. Putin and his whole government deserve to see the world upside down for a brief time.

    • GrayoxOP
      19•1 year ago

      So not that much different from what America did in Iraq, got it!

      • @Taalen@lemmy.world
        33•1 year ago

        It’s quite disingenuous to compare the worst atrocities committed by individuals, which were then tried and sentenced, to Russia’s standard operation procedure and doctrine.

        • @Count042@lemmy.ml
          10•1 year ago

          We used rape and sexual assault as an official interrogation method. The general in charge of Abu Ghraib, who as someone who would be in charge of those things is obviously a horrible person, was absolutely thrown under the bus by the Bush Administration to try and limit the explicitness that this was official US policy, but somewhat unsuccessfully. She was just a scapegoat.

          In Afghanistan it was official policy that US soldiers had to guard the Northern Alliance warlords that we outsourced large parts of the war too as they would rape small boys. If they tried to interfere, they were officially reprimanded.

          The US explicitly has used rape and sexual assault as part of its official doctrine.

        • krolden
          6•1 year ago

          This is just one of many examples. If it wasn’t the president directly raping children then he definitely enabled it.

          • @fubo@lemmy.world
            29•1 year ago

            Here’s what happened to the American soldiers who did that:

            Green was discharged from the U.S. Army for mental instability before the crimes were known by his command, whereas Cortez, Barker, and Spielman were tried by a military court martial, convicted, and sentenced to decades in prison. Green was tried and convicted in a United States civilian court and sentenced to life in prison.

            Russian soldiers in Ukraine are encouraged to commit rape. US soldiers in Iraq were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for committing rape.

            The Iraq war was stupid shit based on lies. But the conduct of US soldiers and Russian soldiers is really freakin’ different.

      • @GreatGrapeApe@reddthat.com
        8•1 year ago

        Ok how many thousands of examples can you come up with in the US invasion of Iraq perpetrated by Americans. There are reports of thousands of rapes as Russia still utilizes rape as a war tactic and always have.