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- Particularly severe pressure: negotiations between Cuba and the United States have reached an impasse
Particularly severe pressure: negotiations between Cuba and the United States have reached an impasse
Diplomacy between Cuba and the United States has stalled. Washington imposed a new package of sanctions, despite Havana's market reforms, which it insisted on. At the same time, the United States openly threatens the country with war. Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth confirmed that the White House is considering radical scenarios for a change of power, including the capture of the Cuban leader according to the Venezuelan scenario. At the same time, the kidnapping of Raul Castro is being discussed in the United States. As the situation worsened, reports appeared in the media about the mass distribution of weapons to Cuban citizens. However, the Russian ambassador to the island, Viktor Coronelli, denied these rumors to Izvestia, calling them disinformation from the Venezuelan opposition.
The diplomatic impasse between Cuba and the United States
Negotiations between Cuba and the United States are at an impasse, said the head of the republic's Foreign Ministry, Bruno Rodriguez. In the spring of this year, the parties began conducting public consultations on overcoming the energy crisis. At the same time, it was assumed that Cuba was carrying out market reforms, and the United States was lifting sanctions. However, Washington still switched from diplomacy to ultimatums and demands a complete change of power. Despite the package of market reforms, the Americans imposed new sanctions against key state-owned companies. The structures of the Ministry of Defense, logistics and mining enterprises were subject to restrictions.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez
The Donald Trump administration is not interested in Cuba's economic transformation in principle and is determined to dismantle the government, political analyst Igor Pshenichnikov believes. According to him, the island is located 90 miles from Florida and has not been subject to the United States for more than 60 years, setting an example for the whole of Latin America. Without Cuba, there would be no anti-American sentiment in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela. Therefore, the Americans want to eliminate this negative example, the expert is sure.
The main danger of the new US restrictions is the launch of secondary sanctions, which present foreign businesses with a choice: to cut ties with Havana or lose access to the US market and the dollar. The blacklisting of the logistics operator AUSA will paralyze customs, which will cause carriers to avoid Cuban ports. This jeopardizes the supply of food and medicine, which Cuba badly needs during the energy crisis. According to Alice Kazelko, an expert at the Valdai Club, this threatens the island with a humanitarian crisis, for which Washington is responsible.
US pressure is increasing with the unprecedented liberalization of Cuba's economy along Chinese lines, where power is concentrated in the hands of the Communist Party. For the first time since 1959, private commercial banks have been allowed here, the hiring of labor has been exempted from government regulation, and direct imports for businesses have been approved. The reforms also affected the energy sector: Havana abolished duties on the import of equipment for solar and wind generation, allowing citizens to sell excess energy to the grid.
According to Alisa Kazelko, the package of 176 reforms is a rational response to pressure. With 20-hour blackouts and the loss of oil imports, the state is forced to retreat to state capitalism. Havana has been operating under a blockade for more than 60 years, which is tougher than anti-Russian sanctions, so the expansion of the private sector, according to political analyst Igor Pshenichnikov, is the right step.
But the full-fledged deployment and adaptation of the reforms will take considerable time, warned an informed source of Izvestia in Havana.
— Given the situation with sanctions and the blockade, the development path (compared to China and Vietnam) will take longer. Now all these laws are under implementation, it requires a lot of discussions, time, and experts' opinions are being listened to," the source stressed.
Support from Russia
In the current situation, Havana is seeking support from foreign partners, including Russia, which itself is under Western restrictions.
"Today, the Russian-Cuban bilateral agenda includes a number of projects related to various sectors of the Cuban economy," Russian Ambassador to Cuba Viktor Coronelli told Izvestia.
An example of a partnership was the launch of a joint biopharmaceutical company, Synergia Global Biofarmaceutica. Her program includes the creation of cancer drugs, as well as the launch of Cuban remedies for diabetes, burns and autoimmune diseases on the Russian market. Localization of production in Russia will allow Havana to steadily receive money from sales to support the economy.
— We hope for joint projects, and not only with Russians, we would like Cuban companies to be able to enter the market, — said a source in Cuba.
Moscow is also providing humanitarian support to Havana. Russia became the only country that helped the republic cope with the peak of the energy crisis: at the end of March, the tanker Anatoly Kolodkin arrived on the island with 100 thousand tons of oil on board. The Russian Federation is ready to continue to support the republic, the Ambassador stressed.
Tanker Anatoly Kolodkin
"The relevant work is being carried out both on a bilateral track and through relevant multilateral organizations, including the UN World Food Program,— Victor Coronelli concluded.
The possibility of a violent scenario in Cuba
In parallel with the economic blockade, Washington openly threatens Havana with war. The United States is working on the capture of President Diaz-Canel and ex-leader Raul Castro. Threats from the White House are both a real danger and an element of psychological pressure to test Havana's strength, Pshenichnikov believes.
Havana has already put civil defense on high alert. According to the "War of the Whole People" doctrine, the population is heavily involved in the exercises, and during the intervention, the US army will face total guerrilla resistance from all sectors of society — from students to pensioners. Against this background, rumors about the mass distribution of weapons to citizens appeared in the media.
"The information about the issue of weapons to the civilian population in Cuba is a pure fake, which was planted by one of the opposition electronic Venezuelan resources, after which it was picked up and replicated by many media outlets, unfortunately, including Russian ones," Russian Ambassador Viktor Coronelli told Izvestia.
An informed source in Cuba also confirmed to Izvestia that this was just a hoax. He recalled civilian exercises and military training at universities, but nothing more ambitious is happening in the country.
The original source of the fake was the opposition Venezuelan edition of Versión Final. The radical anti-communist position of the editorial board directly determines its agenda, focused on publications about the collapse and chaos in Cuba. The stuffing about the distribution of weapons serves the purposes of information warfare, forming the image of the island as a hotbed of instability in the interests of the United States. While Havana is trying to save the economy and Washington is increasing pressure, Cuba's future depends on the effectiveness of market reforms in the face of the blockade and support from other countries.
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