…about those Cuban troops in Venezuela…

✍Si la treintena de militares cubanos abatidos durante la operación militar de los Estados Unidos en Venezuela son reconocidos en una nota oficial del régimen como “caídos en el cumplimiento del deber” y, además, es decretado “Duelo Nacional”, entonces en las muchas ocasiones… pic.twitter.com/CTQh1IgASf

— Cubanet 🇨🇺 (@CubanetNoticias) January 5, 2026

If the thirty or so Cuban soldiers killed during the United States’ military operation in Venezuela are recognized in an official statement from the regime as “fallen in the line of duty” and, furthermore, “National Mourning” is decreed, then on the many occasions when it swore that there were no troops from the Island participating in military and security operations on Venezuelan soil, the Cuban Foreign Ministry was lying shamelessly.

Not only that, but also, in the tone of what was said by the “offended” Ms. Johana Tablada, they have been offending the Cuban people, though that is something that, like the constant use of lies, should no longer surprise anyone.

But it should anger us, and greatly, even if just this once. Because this offense and this lie about the presence of personnel in Venezuela are something very serious, so much so that they could still put the country at risk if the United States were to interpret that deception as another act of war.

They have been liars and irresponsible. Because, beyond the fact that those dead soldiers were aware of their role as a repressive force in Venezuela, and that they received and honed their training as repressors on the streets of Cuba. Since it is a requirement of “revolutionary loyalty” to earn a “mission.”

We cannot overlook the fact that it is a huge irresponsibility on the part of the Cuban regime not to have evacuated those soldiers, knowing, first, that they lacked the capacity to confront U.S. troops. And, second, that confirmation by the United States of such a military force deployed in Venezuela could have led to Cuba’s inclusion in the theater of operations on this January 3rd, if they haven’t already considered doing so on some other date.

In that sense, they have been irresponsible with the health personnel who experienced and still experience moments of great uncertainty. They were not evacuated when the first aircraft carrier appeared off the Venezuelan coast, and when Trump’s ultimatums to Maduro began. Because once again, the dollars to be earned took precedence over the lives to be preserved.

Nevertheless, we didn’t need the regime’s statement or the declarations from the U.S. government to learn about the Cuban military presence in Venezuela, something we’ve known since the days of Hugo Chávez.

Through our own inquiries, with family members of some of those soldiers on “mission,” we’ve learned that, while there are soldiers who only earn the right to a “better mission” in the future and perhaps a home upon their return to the Island, likewise, the high-ranking Cuban officers might be receiving salaries between three thousand and five thousand dollars monthly, depending on the security ring and the Venezuelan boss to whom they are assigned, or the complexity of the work they perform.

We’ve also learned that among owners of mipymes and “entrepreneurs,” among farm owners and hotel managers, there are quite a few who, they or their closest family members, made their small fortunes during years of service to Chavismo, which is nothing other than the Venezuelan version of Castroism.

No Cuban soldier arrived in Venezuela forced or deceived—as may have happened in Angola and as might be occurring with some personnel enlisted in the Russian army in the war against Ukraine—; on the contrary, they traveled there fully aware of the training they received in special training centers and of the military or security mission they had to fulfill, as well as the salary they would receive and the “political and ideological conditions” required to earn it.

They are not martyrs, nor was their final action heroic. They are neither the children sent with full awareness to die in the fire at the supertanker base in Matanzas nor the poor soldiers buried by the regime’s recklessness in an ammunition dump in Oriente.