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.
What the actual fuck is wrong with you. The US has had policies of child kidnapping in every single war zone it’s been in for the last 50 years.
The evidence for this being a tactic that the Russians are using is that there is a lot of rape happening and that the Russian state does nothing to stop it. A measure by which of course the US has still not stopped either.
The US participated in a giant network of child trafficking for the purpose of child rape for decades in Afghanistan.
The USA did not kidnap those kids. They were typically orphans as a result of the wars but hey don’t ket nuance get in the way.
Russia is kidnapping children right now. Their parents and families still live.
The history of rape as a tactic is pretty well documented. You must be poorly educated in history to not know this. When Americans rape people they typically get tried whereas Russia just lets it happen. It’s almost as if one society doesn’t view it as evil as everyone else.
The official policy was to not be involved ij Bacha Bazi so if you have a source that is not laughable (like Medium.com would be or a fanzine would also be) that proves that Americans did not look the other way regarding this practice I’d like to see it.
So if I shoot at random people on the street, and kill you, and decide your baby is cute and I want it. It’s not kidnapping, because that was just an orphan bro, that baby’s parents were dead.
Nah, if country A precipitates a war on Country B, people die, and then you started adopting their orphaned children out, back to County A, and not within their county of origin… That feels an awful lot like kidnapping. In fact, it feels an awful lot like the definition of genocide
They LITERALLY kidnapped them you piece of shit. It’s not a matter of nuance, it’s a matter of you just being fucking wrong.
And I would laugh at the idea that the US prosecutes rapists in the armed forces, but it’s too fucking tragic to laugh at.
And as for the US involvement in Bachi Barzi specifically, and how you don’t accept sources on that. Well how about the fucking US fucking military itself https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/inspections/SIGAR 17-47-IP.pdf