According to U.S. Forbes, citing U.S. Congressional documents, 25,000 Cuban troops have recently entered Russia. It is the largest third country army in Russia.。
Ukraine's General Intelligence Service spokesman Yusuv said that it has been confirmed that more than 1000 Cuban soldiers have served in the Russian army, and at least 39 people have been killed in the battle.
Is life a good business?
For those countries that are deeply deprived of poverty and are financially exhausted, the frontline of Ukraine has become a bloody trading market, where living lives are seen as hard currency in exchange for economic survival and national development.
The lure of money is naked and deadly. It is said that, Foreign mercenaries get a salary of $2,000 a month。 This figure, compared with the average income of Cuban civil servants of 15 to 20 dollars per month, is simply a fantasy.
In a country plagued by the worst economic crisis in decades, this money is enough to change the fate of a family, the equivalent of an average person’s income for several years.
This arrangement also provides a lifeline for certain regimes. If the rumored 25,000 Cuban soldiers are true, it could generate up to US$600 million in foreign exchange earnings for Havana every year.
This money, for a country in desperate need of funds to fix a collapsing sugar industry and a crippled power grid, is nothing short of a timely assistance. This is also reminiscent of the history of Cuba's export of military power in exchange for Soviet economic assistance during the Cold War.
For Moscow, this account is more shrewd. The annual cost of a foreign soldier of $24,000 is far less than the expenses of a native soldier of more than $85,000. More importantly, Russia not only outsourced the fighting, but also shed the long-term burden of casualties.
Those annoying pensions, family pensions, and possible domestic social contradictions all disappeared with the fall of these foreign faces.
A soldier's cruel gamble
Every soldier's experience is filled with despair, deception and extreme danger. They become the chessboard of the great powers and can be sacrificed at any time. The road to the frontline is often filled with lies.
Several North Korean soldiers were told that they were just going to "military training" until they arrived at the artillery front line and realized that they had been in an endless situation.
Someone complained in the letter that they were still forced to remain in the army after their contract expired. There was also a Russian recruiter named Elena Smirnova who was accused of embezzling the salaries of three to four hundred Cuban soldiers.
Once on the battlefield, their fate becomes even more uncontrollable. Ukraine intelligence shows that Cubans are often used by the Russian army as "expendable infantry." Reports of more than 40 Cuban soldiers killed in battle seem to confirm this.
The situation of North Korean soldiers is equally tragic. It is said that by February this year, more than 300 people had been killed and 2,700 wounded. They were extremely determined on the battlefield, preferring to die rather than be captured.
Because they know that once captured, families far away from home could be labeled as “traitors.”The Ukrainian side, despite giving bribes, has never managed to catch any North Korean soldier alive.
It's like a brutal gamble. The Cuban soldiers who survive may get heroic treatment, better housing and jobs after returning home. The families of those who died in battle can receive a large pension.
In this gamble in which their lives are bet, countless families are suffering from the endless suffering of their loved ones "missing during mission."
Exchange cannon fodder for tickets to future wars
Russia is cleverly using the conflict to turn it into a practical military academy tailored for its allies. It traded access to modern battlefields in exchange for vital war supplies and used it to hone a fighting group capable of confronting Western military power.
The war in Ukraine is a living laboratory of 21st century combat methods. By letting allied troops take turns, Russia provides them with actual combat experience that is hard to buy.
UAV attack and defense, electronic warfare countermeasures, and the application of precision-guided munitions... these cannot be simulated by military exercises. Behind this is a tacit strategic exchange.
North Korea has sent elite special forces, including the "Storm Corps", to receive valuable practical baptism here. In return, it not only obtained oil, food and advanced military technology from Russia, but also provided Russia with a large amount of artillery and missile technology. Allegedly, North Korean artillery shells once accounted for 60% of Russian military supplies.
The ultimate goal is to build a new strategic alliance. Russia, Cuba and North Korea are accumulating valuable experience in countering NATO weapons and tactics on the dirt of Ukraine.
This will not only help them modernize their military, but also strengthen their confidence to collectively challenge the global order dominated by the United States. Today's cannon fodder is to prepare for tomorrow's more intense confrontation.
A fake public opinion war.
Beyond the physical battlefields of artillery and artillery, an intense information warfare is being fought simultaneously, with denial, accusations, strategic silence and carefully screened “evidence” intertwined, making the existence of these foreign soldiers a controversial topic.
The case of Cuba is Rashomon. Havana firmly denied it and stressed that it cracked down on human trafficking networks involved in recruitment in 2023. But Kyiv went tit-for-tat, claiming that the mass recruitment began just after that "strike" and showing scanned passports and a list of killed people as evidence.
In contrast, North Korea’s involvement was a “open secret” that its official news agency even confirmed on April 28.
However, the equally disturbing rumor of “two thousand Cuban soldiers” has suffered a strange silence in the mainstream Western media, which makes it impossible to doubt the reliability of the source or the deliberate selective reporting.
In this battle of public opinion, each side may be manipulating information. Ukraine may have exaggerated the numbers for psychological warfare. Russia uses foreign forces to cover up its true casualties.
Western powers, on the other hand, condemned North Korea in a high profile, but kept their mouths shut on the Cuban issue. French President Macron even called on China to stop North Korea.
conclusion
Economic despair spawned a market in which human lives were traded, which ultimately led to huge individual tragedy and exploitation. At the same time, this battlefield has also become a strategic exercise ground for the anti-Western alliance and a front line for an international information war that dazzles the outside world.
The deceived North Korean soldier, the Cuban mercenary who worked for money, and their families thousands of miles away are the truest human faces of this complex network.
They reveal how a local conflict spreads, mutates, and involves players from different corners of the globe, blurring the lines between allies, mercenaries, victims and pawns on this 21st century chessboard.
Reference source:
https://mil.huanqiu.com/article/4OeHF2jpFyb