Russia pledged support for Cuba on Thursday after the U.S. indicted former Cuban president Raúl Castro on murder charges linked to the 1996 downing of exile planes, escalating tensions between Washington and Havana.
Russia said it would provide “active support” to Cuba despite what it described as U.S. attempts to intimidate the communist-run island and tighten the “sanctions noose” around it.
The comments came a day after the U.S. announced murder charges against Castro, 94, in a major escalation of Washington’s pressure campaign against Cuba, where the Communist Party has ruled since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution.
“We will continue to provide the most active support to the fraternal Cuban people during this extremely difficult period,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
“We reaffirm our full solidarity with Cuba and strongly condemn any attempts at gross interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, intimidation, and the use of illegal unilateral restrictive measures, threats, and blackmail.”
Zakharova did not specify what support Moscow would provide, but said Washington was showing its “intolerance towards any form of dissent and a cynical embodiment of the revived Monroe Doctrine.”
The indictment against Raúl Castro and five former Cuban military officers stems from the 1996 shootdown of two planes operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue, which killed four people.
U.S. prosecutors charged Castro with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, four counts of murder and destruction of aircraft.
The move marked a sharp deterioration in relations between the longtime Cold War rivals and came as President Donald Trump intensified calls for political change in Cuba.
Cuban officials rejected the charges as politically motivated, while Russia and China both condemned the U.S. action as interference in Cuba’s internal affairs.
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