The Story of a Cuban Mercenary Recruited by Russia
who managed to escape the war
Francisco García paid nearly $13,000 to a smuggler to take him to Greece, where he now survives on the streets.
HAVANA TIMES – Francisco García was told plainly: “You’ll return to Cuba in a coffin or as a hero.” The 37-year-old quickly realized that the enticing online ad a friend had shown him months earlier—offering 204,000 rubles (about $2,594 USD) a month and a Russian passport for repairing buildings damaged by Ukrainian bombings—was a lie. He had been recruited as a mercenary. “My life was over,” he told the British newspaper Daily Mail.
García witnessed the deaths of dozens of Cubans in combat, and “Russians who killed themselves” because they couldn’t bear the war. But mercenaries, he said, are not “allowed to show fear”—they can’t feel pain or compassion. “They wanted us to be like robots on the battlefield.”
García, who escaped in October and is now in Greece surviving on the streets, is one of thousands of Cubans recruited by Russia since the war began in February 2022. A man who “fought in a war” that had nothing to do with him. According to Ukrainian intelligence, there are about 7,000 Cubans currently on the battlefield with little or no training.
From the moment he stepped off the plane that brought him from Havana to Sheremetyevo International Airport, Garcia was filled with fear at the sight of Cubans in military uniforms and Russian soldiers forcing them onto army trucks. “They didn’t give us food or water. After a long trip, we arrived at an abandoned sports school guarded by armed police,” he told Daily Mail.
García confirmed the same pattern other Cubans have reported. Once in Moscow, they are handed contracts written in Russian and, amid shouting and threats, forced to enlist as mercenaries.
He was given a heavy weapon. “It was the first time I’d ever held a gun,” said García, who remains haunted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words: “Traitors will never be forgotten.” Garcia insists he has never killed anyone but admits: “I don’t know if I hurt someone because I fired in panic—but it’s something that never leaves my mind.”
After 30 days alongside other Cubans and people from Asia and Africa, he was pushed to the front lines without warning because “Russia was losing a lot of soldiers every day.” Garcia was forced to carry heavy weapons, including an assault rifle, a portable rocket launcher, and four grenades.
He quickly realized that war “wasn’t a game” and that his mission from then on was to survive. “At first, there were 90 Cubans like me, but more than half died in combat,” he said.
In battle, he saw firsthand the destructive power of kamikaze drones—something “we Cubans didn’t even know existed”—which, he said, “caused far more damage than hand-to-hand fighting.”
According to García, when mercenaries are wounded on the front lines, the Russians abandon them.
On one occasion, he was hit by bullets that left a scar on his right bicep. “I rushed for cover, but I got hit. It felt like I’d been struck by a giant hammer, but I didn’t feel much pain because of the adrenaline and my instinct to survive.” García went into shock, and a tourniquet was quickly applied and morphine injected to manage the pain.
The second injury came when “a bomb hit a building near me. I can still hear the blast. Metal fragments from the explosion hit my left arm and both legs, and there was a toxic smell.”
After a year in the Russian artillery brigade in Rostov, Donetsk, and Soledar, Garcia was awarded a medal and a certificate honoring his service. He was also granted a two-month leave in October 2024. That’s when he seized the chance to escape. He contacted a smuggler who, for a million rubles (about $12,715), promised to get him “safely to Greece.”
Garcia had the money from his service pay, which he had been unable to send back to Cuba. His journey involved flights through six countries—from Belarus to Azerbaijan, then to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt—before finally arriving in Athens, he told the Daily Mail.
“I’ve been through so much hardship, and no one helps me. I sleep on the streets and fight to survive. I wish I could go back to my simple life in Cuba, but I can’t,” he laments.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
Wow! This is a very interesting story. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it was widely believed that the the Russian military was the second most potent military in the world behind the US military. Stories like this and many others prove a different truth about the strength of the Russian military. A government so desperate for soldiers that they are reduced to tricking conscripts to fight is not a world-class fighting force. After 3 years of stalemate with the Ukrainian military, Russia is barely a regional military. Second, I fight it hard to believe that the Castro dictatorship isn’t getting some kind of kickback or commission or something for sending Cubans to fight for Russia. Sending your own citizens to a meat grinder war like this one for money? That’s despicable. Finally, why doesn’t this ex-soldier just go back home to Cuba? Is he persona non grata in Cuba because he deserted his post in Ukraine? There is no doubt much more to this story.