When Pedro* boarded the plane that would take him from Havana to the frigid and distant Russia, he thought he would be working as a construction worker. The blackouts and the scarcity of food and medicine in Cuba pushed him to accept a contract for about $2,000 a month, for which he left his family behind, in exchange for the illusion of providing for them.

But his Russian employers had other ideas. Upon arrival, they gave him a uniform and a rifle to go to the front lines of the bloody war in Ukraine.

From the socialist misery of the Caribbean to the human meat grinder that the Russian-Ukrainian front has become, Pedro is one of many other recent stories of Cuban men in the ranks of the mercenary contingents that land in the war on Moscow’s side.

However, one distinction is key here. While foreign legions like the North Korean one are publicly supported by their respective dictators, the Cuban contingent has seen the Castro regime distance itself from it in the media.

This move represents a retreat from the proud concept of “Proletarian Internationalism,” which spearheaded the Castro regime’s crossing of the Atlantic with brigades of tank crews, aircraft, and soldiers to the Yom Kippur, Ogaden, and Angolan wars.

Why? Because the world changed. The flow of Soviet subsidies that greased the wheels of the Cuban military machine evaporated; and in Fidel Castro’s speeches, the notion of exporting the revolution subsided, replaced by the much more politically correct, albeit false, notion of peace.

But the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC) has just blown up that latter notion. Its Secretary General, Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, stated in a recent press conference that the crimes and violations committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine involved “the direct participation of the Cuban regime through the deployment of mercenaries recruited on the island in exchange for financial compensation.”

The Castro regime “is receiving a bonus for every mercenary” fighting against Ukraine on the Russian side, Gutiérrez Boronat said.

During a visit to Kyiv, he personally met three of them, captured in Ukraine, identified as Frank Darío Jarrosay, Ernesto Michel Pérez Avelaes, and Yusbel González Tuercos. It was he, as part of the long Cuban exile community, and not the socialist state, who informed the men’s families on the island about their fate and ensured they received humane treatment in Ukrainian prisons.

A report from the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War estimated that some 20,000 Cubans have been involved in the Russian army as mercenaries during the war. The average age of those who end up on the battlefield is 35. Meanwhile, the island has been experiencing a massive exodus of young people in the last four years, jeopardizing generational replacement in the already depressed national demographics.

According to the document, the treatment of Cubans in the Russian ranks borders on modern slavery. Cubans in the Russian ranks are unable to terminate their contracts, contact family members or consular representatives of their country of origin, and suffer abuse and racism from Russian commanders and fellow soldiers, as well as extortion by commanders or recruiters.

ARC stated that with “the full participation of the Castro regime in the Russian war effort,” it is consolidating its position as part of a new “Axis of Evil,” led by Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and Havana. The veiled participation of the Castro regime in the war in Ukraine could also be a sign that the world continues to change. Again, not in favor of the Cuban dictatorship.

Ukraine, for its part, is increasingly aligning itself with the anti-Castro cause. The first step was closing its embassy in Havana.

For the first time in decades, the Castro regime lost several countries in the U.N. vote to continue the economic and financial embargo against it. Among them was the Ukrainian vote, which, according to the country’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, was not a sudden decision.

Their vote, Sybiha said, “is against the inaction of the Cuban authorities in the face of the mass recruitment of Cuban citizens into the Russian occupation army. Thousands of them have signed contracts, joining the ranks of soldiers who are directly participating in combat operations on Ukrainian territory. Havana’s refusal to stop the mass deployment of its citizens in the Russian war against Ukraine constitutes complicity in the aggression and must be strongly condemned.”

Furthermore, during that vote on the embargo, ARC believes that “the monopoly of the Spanish socialist government on the Cuban issue within the UN and the European Union” was broken, thanks to the alliance with Ukraine of countries like Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary in voting against the Cuban dictatorship’s proposal at the U.N., “marking a new moral alignment in defense of freedom.”

Once again, the winds have shifted, but perhaps this time totalitarianism in Havana will miss the boat on history, at least in international politics, in the distant fields where Russians and Ukrainians are bleeding to death.

* Pedro’s story reflects that of many other Cubans who have participated in the European conflict.