Capitalism, or free markets operating under an independent judiciary with the rule of law, has been absent in Cuba since 1959, and has not returned with this current regime.

Russian-style “private enterprise: Regime oligarchs and corruption

Havana had been touting a “transition” to Russian-style “private enterprise”. In a country without the rule of law there are no “Cuban independent entrepreneurs” doing large scale business, but oligarchs connected to the dictatorship. Lessons Castro regime officials learned from their Russian allies on “capitalism” and that Cuban economist Elías Amor Bravo explains in 14ymedio in his April 10, 2023 article “What Can Happen with the Russian Economic Plans in Cuba?”

“In reality, the experience of Cuban SMEs in the last year has little to do with the free enterprise of which the Russians speak. Of course, it is much better that there are SMEs than that there are none. But the regime has absolutely controlled the process of creation and approval, and despite everything, it has not been able to consolidate productive structures in the field of food, where unattended needs are still very prominent. There has been a commitment to the manufacturing industry and services, which have been consolidated in the first sectoral position. There have also been complaints that some SMEs have been oriented to develop businesses that are in the hands of family and friends of senior officials, as well as foreign entrepreneurs related to the regime. But the truth is that, so far, you can’t talk about an economic class with defined objectives and purposes. The state maintains absolute control of the process, and the SME as an alternative to communist power is weak.”

To understand what is taking place in Cuba one must understand one important fact underscored by Christopher Simmons, retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency with over 23 years of experience as a counterintelligence officer, on May 17, 2012, when he testified before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs in a hearing on “Cuba’s Global Network of Terrorism, Intelligence, and Warfare.” He presented the following analysis of the regime in Cuba.

“In many respects, Cuba can be accurately characterized as a violent criminal organization masquerading as a government. The island’s five intelligence services exist not to protect the nation, but to ensure the survival of the regime.”

On August 15, 2024 Tampa resident Mirtza Ocana (age 39) pled “guilty to one count of bulk cash smuggling and one count of conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling.”  She was smuggling millions of dollars out of Cuba to the United States.

“Corruption can be simple or complex. Officials fortunate enough to have control over scarce resources like fuel sell these on the black market and realize enormous profits. The preferred approach is more indirect, however. Following the outbreak of anti-regime protests in July 2021, the government allowed the establishment of private “micro, small, and medium enterprises,” theoretically as a way to open up the economy to market forces. But most if not all of the 9,000 private enterprises operating in Cuba today are owned by powerful regime figures who then funnel public works contracts to them.”

Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning until February 2, 2024, was detained on March 7, 2024. He has been linked to Mirtza Ocana and her “bulk cash smuggling” operation from Cuba to the United States. Ms. Ocana has denied the connection, but the timing and word of mouth indicate otherwise.

Money leaves Miami for Cuba and returns to Tampa for regime oligarchs, and their relatives

Nora Gámez Torres reported in the article “How Miami companies are secretly fueling the dramatic growth of Cuba’s private businesses” published in the Miami Herald on June 23, 2023 that “the money that families have sent to their relatives in Cuba for decades is now fueling an explosion of capitalism on the communist island. Businesses that facilitate that flow of cash have created a clever but complex system that is helping Cuban private entrepreneurs sidestep U.S. financial sanctions and buy abroad the supplies they need for their businesses on the island.” Now we know that millions of those dollars ended up in the pockets of high ranking Cuban officials, and funneled back into the United States through Tampa.

Meanwhile, Cubans continue to live without water, electricity, and food as infrastructure collapses and the communist elite’s bank accounts increase.

Reuters August 23rd, 2024

Massive blackouts roil Cuba

By Nelson Acosta and Alien Fernandez

CARDENAS, Cuba, Aug 23 (Reuters) – Power outages totaling 14 hours or more per day were reported on Thursday across much of crisis-racked Cuba, leaving millions of residents defenseless in the summer heat and humidity.

The state-run power company said breakdowns had forced six plants off-line on the outdated and poorly maintained grid.

The monopoly provider promised only minor relief for the weekend with humidity forecast at around 90% and temperatures of up to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit).

On Thursday evening there was no power in Matanzas province just east of Havana, except at the famed Varadero tourism resort and key institutions such as hospitals, according to local social media reports and Reuters witnesses.

Residents appeared resigned to their fate and would not provide last names as they sought fresh air on the darkened streets of the town of Santa Marta in Cardenas municipality.

“We are already adapted, the Cuban lives like this, laughing calmly, with light or without light,” said Doris, sitting outside her home with two adult sons.

The blackouts, which disrupt daily life and the economy, have plagued the Communist-run country since 2021, sparking rare protests. They reflect a deepening economic crisis marked by shortages of basic goods, double-digit inflation and a lack of cash to import fuel and parts for infrastructure.

Ariel Rodriguez, a 52-year-old restaurant worker at the other end of the Caribbean island nation in eastern Santiago de Cuba, where protests broke out in March demanding food and lights, said by phone that the blackouts had eased since then but were worsening again.

“Over the last two weeks power cuts have averaged 10 hours a day, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. and at night from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.,” he said.

“Yesterday they added 11 p.m. to 3:15 a.m.,” Rodriguez added.

Residents in eastern Holguin province and central Camaguey and Cienfuegos provinces described similar conditions.

Havana has largely been spared the blackouts, which come in tranches of four hours or more, often multiple times over 24 hours.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/massive–blackouts–roil–cuba-2024-08-23/

U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida, August 15, 2024

Tampa Woman Pleads Guilty To Smuggling Over $100,000 Into The United States From Cuba

Thursday, August 15, 2024

In Cuba, the terminal stage of communism is a mafia

Regime corruption, economic collapse and public anger point to trouble ahead

By Martin Gurri

This essay was originally published in Discourse magazine.

On Feb. 5, Mirtza Ocana, an American citizen of Cuban origin, arrived at Tampa International Airport from Havana and was arrested for attempting to smuggle more than $100,000 into the country. When questioned, Ocana confessed to having carried out 45 similar assignments since May 2023. The smuggling operation involved millions of dollars.

Because Cuba has slipped beneath the attention horizon of the news media, this incident attracted zero interest. Yet it posed a perplexing riddle. Cuba’s communist regime currently faces the most disastrous economic collapse in its long history of such failures. The reasons are many, but most immediately it’s a lack of foreign currency with which to buy food and fuel for the population. The Cuban economy resembles those broken-down cars from the ’50s still found on the streets of Havana: It produces little for internal consumption and almost nothing that can be sold abroad for hard currency.

Why, then, is the island now exporting dollars to the United States

The search for an answer leads to two radical transformations that have taken place, largely unnoticed, in Cuba. The first concerns the regime, which has given up any revolutionary pretensions and become what ordinary Cubans call a “mafia.” Don’t think of the pushy American racketeers in the style of “Godfather II.” The mafia in Cuba is indistinguishable from the regime itself. The matter is naturally shrouded by fictions and smokescreens, but the godfather may well be the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.

Outwardly, nothing has changed. The worn-out slogans are still piously intoned. The Communist Party, with its repressive apparatus, still dodders on. Raúl Castro, 92, remains a shadowy but frightening presence. But new people are in charge of ruling a society that, top to bottom, has lost all faith in the system – and, as often happens in moments of exhausted zealotry, those who command power and resources want nothing more than to enjoy the good life and protect themselves against an uncertain future.

The Mafia of Cienfuegos: A Case Study

The machinations of the mafia are transparent to most Cubans. In a remarkable 24-minute video titled “The Mafia of Cienfuegos,” digital dissident Yamil Cuéllar calls out mafia members by name, shows their photos, reveals addresses and exposes methods in detail, linking high officials in the provincial government of Cienfuegos, a city and province on the south-central coast of the island. Cuéllar’s targets include the province’s governor, local chiefs of the Ministry of Interior and Military Counterintelligence and, ultimately, the biggest fish in Cuba’s ruling structure, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and Díaz-Canel himself.

Corruption can be simple or complex. Officials fortunate enough to have control over scarce resources like fuel sell these on the black market and realize enormous profits. The preferred approach is more indirect, however. Following the outbreak of anti-regime protests in July 2021, the government allowed the establishment of private “micro, small, and medium enterprises,” theoretically as a way to open up the economy to market forces. But most if not all of the 9,000 private enterprises operating in Cuba today are owned by powerful regime figures who then funnel public works contracts to them.

This is an old game in Latin America. The governor of Cienfuegos can invoke an urban preservation law to raze a city block and award the rebuilding contract to an enterprise he himself owns, netting two million pesos in the bargain. In his video, Cuéllar cites many such maneuvers. Even by Cuban standards, astonishing amounts of money are flowing to the peak of the political pyramid.

Where does the money go? Some of it buys what passes for the good life in Cuba. The vast majority of the island’s inhabitants, we must remember, subsist in conditions of abysmal poverty, enduring constant power blackouts and food shortages while stuck in housing that is literally crumbling into ruins. But a thin crust at the top can afford to live in modern comfort. Even minor members of the Cienfuegos mafia dwell in new suburban-looking homes with garages, sun panels for air-conditioning and water heating and generators to avoid those pesky blackouts on cloudy days.

Higher-ups like the governor own luxurious residences – according to Cuéllar, designed by the minister of interior’s favorite architect – as well as places of rest and recreation at the beach and in the countryside, a magnificent sailing ship and shiny BMWs. Two palatial buildings in the city and an extensive marina are said by Cuéllar to be controlled by the country’s prime minister, Marrero Cruz. Since another money trail leads directly to president Díaz-Canel’s brother-in-law, we can safely assume that the local rackets enjoy the benevolent protection of the regime. Life is truly good for the Cienfuegos mafia.

But most of the money is converted into dollars and sent illegally out of the country. In an economic distortion possible only under late-stage dementia communism, it is likely that Cuba’s dearth of foreign currency is due to the mafia syphoning all dollars in the island then smuggling them to safe havens overseas. Cuéllar maintains that the governor’s wife, a Chamber of Commerce representative who in her official capacity frequently travels abroad, acts as the “mule” or smuggler for the Cienfuegos gang. That may or may not be the case – but it’s plain that here, at this turn of the screw, the Cuban regime’s new criminal vocation connects with the arrest at the Tampa airport. Ocana was bringing millions into the U.S. on behalf of some member of the Cuban government. That person is probably known and, as we’ll see, the revelation could trigger a crisis within the regime.

The Fall From Grace of Alejandro Gil

On Feb. 2 – three days before Ocana’s arrest – Cuba’s minister of the economy, Alejandro Gil, was abruptly dismissed from his post. Gil was the author of the “paquetazo” – a package of economic measures designed to curb inflation and bring the economy out of its tailspin, which has had the effect of further enriching the mafia and pauperizing the population. The move seemed to be an acknowledgement that the policy had failed, but Gil was still inside the fold. Four days after the dismissal, Marrero Cruz and Díaz-Canel wished him a happy 60th birthday on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I’m at your service,” tweeted Gil in response.

On March 7, he was detained. The official announcement, made public under Díaz-Canel’s name, was an indecipherable bit of verbiage that mentioned “grave errors” but no specific crimes. Yet the word “corruption” hovered over the jargon like a thundercloud. Gil hadn’t been fired for failing at his job. This was the beginning of a mafia turf war – or a communist purge: The difference is merely rhetorical. The minister of economy cuts a large figure in Cuba. Underlings who facilitated Gil’s “corruption” are certain to fall – that process has already begun. But what about enablers above the former minister?

It defies probability to imagine that Díaz-Canel and Marrero Cruz, who probably run the mafia, aren’t sneaking lots of money abroad. Even in their dotage, the Cuban security services know exactly who in the regime is going where. Whatever Gil did, it was done with the full knowledge and tacit endorsement of the power structure. So who gets purged – and why?

Though neither the Cuban nor the U.S. government have confirmed it, the raging rumor in Cuba is that Ocana, the Tampa smuggler, worked for Gil. It may be that the latter isn’t being punished for corruption but for being caught at it. That doesn’t alter the awkward fact of Díaz-Canel’s and Marrero Cruz’s participation, however. Their fate, I would think, rests in Raúl Castro’s hands. The old totalitarian’s last ambition should be to die in bed – but one never knows with the Castros. Raúl may wish to take down the men who replaced him at the head of the government and party, in a sort of senile revolutionary Götterdämmerung.

Why are Cuba’s rulers intent on taking their wealth out of the country? The answer should be apparent. For all their power and luxury, these people are terrified of the future. To be a member of the Cuban ruling class is to perform, every day, a high-wire act over an active volcano. Since the courage provided by ideological fervor has dissipated, the only safe move is out.

The wreckage of the Cuban economy really can’t be exaggerated. The perpetual blackouts are an apt symbol of a country that is headed for the dark ages. For the first time since the revolution, Cuba is begging the United Nations for food aid. Nearly half a million persons have fled the island in despair during the last two years – that’s 4% of the population, the equivalent of more than 12 million Americans. Yet the failure cascade is moving faster than the capacity to emigrate. People feel trapped and hopeless. The volcano is growling. Despite the words we use, national economies never actually implode – but the regimes that exploit and mismanage them often do.

Rage and Despair on the Cuban Web

At the same time, the Cuban public has found its voice. That is the second radical transformation of Cuban society. Despite the blackouts and the poor connectivity, large numbers of Cubans are venting online. I have no idea how this happens, but the web in Cuba has turned into an immense chorus of anger and disgust.

The old digital dissidents have a more professional look. Yoani Sánchez, one-time blogmother to a tiny sect of online Cubans, presently runs “14ymedio,” a news site indispensable to anyone looking for reliable information about the country. The tone of the site is measured but unquestionably anti-regime.

Yamil Cuéllar, we have seen, can put together high-quality investigative documentaries, posted on YouTube, in which his contempt for the system is expressed in earthy Cubanisms. Cuéllar’s relentless attacks on the government and predictions of its imminent fall make one wonder: Why is this man not in prison? The most likely answer, once again, is a crisis of nerve at the top. Regime enforcers don’t want to be caught striking the wrong pose when the volcano blows.

Most moving are the expressions of little-known individuals trapped in the catastrophe of a failed utopia, trying to make sense of the nightmare of everyday life. Those unable to flee Cuba today escape to the web. They post on Facebook and X, they exchange links and opinions on WhatsApp, they complain of the dark and the heat and the mosquitos at night, they mock the regime, they pray to God for consolation. “How lucky we Cubans are that we can go to the web!” reads a Facebook post. “That’s the end of the state monopoly over information!” During a blackout, one poster asks, “Where can we protest?” Another answers: “Right here.”

Cynicism toward the authorities is absolute. “They’re trying to do damage control and offer Alejandro Gil’s head on a silver platter.” “This was a plan, this wasn’t about errors, this was a plan to destroy from within everything we had believed and built.” Amid a volley of emojis, one wag claimed on Facebook that the words of the communist anthem, the “Internationale,” had been written about Cubans: “Arise, wretched of the earth, stand up you slaves without bread …”

Once the jokes and the defiance stop, we are confronted with the awful spectacle of human existence in a state of pure desperation. “Of course I’m unwell with blackouts of 15 hours one day and eight hours the next. I feel dissociated, I’m not well. I think I’m entering into insanity,” a woman wrote. A poster warned: “This can’t continue indefinitely.”

If, for the moment, the internet in Cuba is a refuge, it takes little imagination to see how it can become a mustering-place for revolt as has transpired elsewhere. Spontaneous protests, captured and transmitted via cellphone video, recently erupted in Santiago de Cuba, Bayamo and other cities in the east of the country. Unrest still simmers as of this moment. All that’s needed is a single mobilizing incident: a spark sufficient to ignite the conflagration.

Meanwhile, dominos will continue to fall. In Tampa, there will be a verdict in the Ocana case and a public report from U.S. authorities, naming names. The purge will resume its erratic progress, snaring officials below, sideways and possibly above Alejandro Gil, as the regime proceeds to devour itself. Gil will be convicted out of his own mouth – probably of taking money from the CIA, so the historic monstrosity that is the Cuban economy can be blamed on “the enemy.” The constellation of political and economic forces that make possible Cuéllar’s Cienfuegos mafia will lose substance, wobble and fade like a hallucination.

Karl Marx taught that the final stage of socialism is communism. We have learned from the evidence of Cuba that the terminal stage of communism is a heedless gangsterism. After that, the deluge.

From the archives

Miami Herald, June 23, 2023

How Miami companies are secretly fueling the dramatic growth of Cuba’s private businesses

By Nora Gámez Torres Updated June 23, 2023 3:06 PM

The money that families have sent to their relatives in Cuba for decades is now fueling an explosion of capitalism on the communist island. Businesses that facilitate that flow of cash have created a clever but complex system that is helping Cuban private entrepreneurs sidestep U.S. financial sanctions and buy abroad the supplies they need for their businesses on the island. Newly emerging agencies abroad, most of them in Miami, are using the cash paid by Cuban Americans to send to their families to buy and ship supplies ordered by Cuba’s entrepreneurs. The business owners in Cuba then reimburse the agencies, which then use that cash already on the island to deliver the remittances.

[ Full article ]

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article276627571.html

Miami Herald, June 23, 2023

Capitalism makes strong comeback in Cuba after six decades of socialism. Will it last?

By Nora Gámez Torres Updated June 23, 2023 9:33 AM

Over the past two years a new kind of revolution has been quietly taking place in Cuba: Private businesses, banished from the island by Fidel Castro more than 60 years ago, are making a strong comeback, employing more people than state enterprises, gaining trust from foreign creditors and helping put food on Cubans’ tables at a time of widespread scarcity. In news that would have shocked communist hardliners just a few years ago, Cuba’s economy minister, Alejandro Gil, said during a recent address to the National Assembly that the private sector is on track to buy over a billion dollars in goods by the end of the year — outpacing the government as the country’s largest importer.

[ Full article ]

Havana Times, April 10, 2023

What Can Happen with the Russian Economic Plans in Cuba?

By Elías Amor Bravo (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – The Russians are not going to be the salvation of the Cuban economy. Not by a long shot. No one should expect magical solutions in all this. Because they don’t care whether Cubans live better, nor have they received that order from Cuban President Díaz-Canel. Let no one have any illusions. Little is known about the Russian plans for the Cuban economy, but a conclusion can be reached. They will not straighten out the state shipwreck that is the inefficient and inoperative Cuban economy. The Russians propose to make changes but without touching anything. Let’s see how they do it.

However, the script of what has to be done to get the Cuban economy out of the Marxist hole is known and written, and in general, there is a lot of consensus around it. Therefore, it is advisable to distrust the Russian plan proposed by Putin’s adviser, Boris Titov, as president of the council of the Center for Russian-Cuban Economic Transformation that was born with the approval of Díaz-Canel during his trip to that country. This council acts on the instructions of Putin in the first place, and Díaz-Canel, secondly. From these two partners, from the good and the bad, you can expect anything, except rationality and economic wisdom. Any Spanish, Argentinian or American consultant could have done better.

The idea, in the first place, is to end the strict control that the regime exercises over the currency exchange. Correct. The creation of a foreign exchange market in Cuba for the peso, transparent and efficient, like the one that exists in other countries of the world with their respective currencies, is a proposal that the communist regime neither likes nor is interested in. Díaz-Canel had it at his fingertips in the Ordering Task,* and it barely lasted two months. He doesn’t  like it because a fixed exchange rate can’t be sustained with the level of reserves of the economy. And it doesn’t interest him, basically, because for Cuban communists the foreign exchange market is nothing more than a means of collecting foreign currency for the state coffers that is not going to leave just because.

All the exchange decisions that are taken in Cuba, including the fixed exchange rate of the ordering task, go through arbitrating mechanisms for the spin of currencies that enter the country for the benefit of the state. The discrepancies between the official and the informal exchange rate prevent any possible solution to the problem of the loss of value of a currency, the fundamentals of which are in serious crisis. The regime does not like the alternative of a foreign exchange market and, therefore, will block this proposal of the Russians, even if they recognize the consequences of the disastrous exchange rate policy.

Secondly, the Russian plan proposes to Havana to empower and promote small and medium-sized enterprises, which in Cuba are known as SMEs, and which have already been criticized from different positions. Are the Russians thinking that Castro’s SMEs serve their reforms? I doubt it. They have proposed an in-depth reform of fiscal policy to bring out activities from the underground economy. As a theoretical approach it could work, but first you have to throw something away. In the Cuban economy, taxes are only a small part of what prevents the SMEs from prospering.

The main problem lies in the absolute interference that the communist regime maintains in the SMEs, which in Cuba must be authorized by the Ministry of Economy and Planning and violates the right to free enterprise that exists in market economies. The Ministry offers monthly data from authorized SMEs, but nowhere is there information on those that go out of business, and it is known that this type of project usually presents a high mortality in its early years. Without this data, it is impossible to determine the scope of the reform of SMEs and their economic and social impact. Presumably, the Russians have asked for the data. Meanwhile, the Cuban state maintains its absolute control over all strategic areas of the economy and corners the SMEs by limiting their possibilities for growth.

The SME sector and other private actors cannot lead any economic change because it only represents 7% of GDP, 11% of budget income and offers employment to a quarter of the country’s workers (1,600,000 according to data from the Ministry of Labor, compared to more than 3 million, double, employed by the state and its companies). The figures do not allow comparison: the private sector in other countries represents more than 80% of employment and in terms of GDP management it far exceeds 70%. The distance from Cuba with these international parameters indicates the intensity and complexity of the reforms to be undertaken.

Thirdly, the Russian plan aims to eliminate other obstacles faced by companies in Cuba, such as the difficulty in accessing credit, high taxes, problems with the rate of return due to the prices of some goods, which are established in a directive way by the regime, or the price of other goods, limited by low wages in the public sector.

In short, return the axis of the functioning of the economy to the private market. Correcting the aforementioned factors is not easy, especially since, in this case, it would not be fair to apply corrective measures only to private companies, when the state companies, which are the “center of the economic system” for the regime, will not receive the same treatment.

Fourthly, the Russian plan believes that making the tax regime more flexible can help the private sector get out of the underground economy and the vicious circle in which it finds itself, and produce results in the increase of the production of food and commodities. The proposal is to move slowly, but surely, in terms of reforms, to avoid what happened in Russia, where structural transformations caused notable social injustices.

The question is how to reconcile reforms in the functioning of the economy with the maintenance of social quotas served by a budget that, necessarily, has to be reduced in size to free up resources for the private sector. It is not a matter of shock therapies or anything like that, but if the state is intended to reduce its weight in activity by placing itself at levels similar to other countries, and central planning is to be replaced by the laws of supply and demand in the setting of prices, the population cannot be deceived: sacrifices will have to be accepted.

And those sacrifices will be the greater the more the structural decisions are delayed and the more they try to sustain the state budget with the current superfluous spending commitments that currently exist. There is no possible alternative, and it should be explained to the people that the adjustments are necessary to build a prosperous economy, capable of generating employment and wealth for all, far from the Stalinist collapse of six decades.

Fifth, the definitive farewell to collectivism must be accompanied by transparent privatization processes with international observers, to ensure the legality of the actions. But as far as we know, the Russian plan doesn’t say much about this. The redistribution of economic power that is associated with these processes should not lead to the creation of mafia groups or companies of the regime, which in reality already exist, but to the birth of efficient, flexible and competitive private companies that help in the reconstruction of the nation. If the Russians are not able to offer this solution, it’s better that they don’t do anything.

In reality, the experience of Cuban SMEs in the last year has little to do with the free enterprise of which the Russians speak. Of course, it is much better that there are SMEs than that there are none. But the regime has absolutely controlled the process of creation and approval, and despite everything, it has not been able to consolidate productive structures in the field of food, where unattended needs are still very prominent. There has been a commitment to the manufacturing industry and services, which have been consolidated in the first sectoral position.

There have also been complaints that some SMEs have been oriented to develop businesses that are in the hands of family and friends of senior officials, as well as foreign entrepreneurs related to the regime. But the truth is that, so far, you can’t talk about an economic class with defined objectives and purposes. The state maintains absolute control of the process, and the SME as an alternative to communist power is weak.

Within the framework of the projects that the Russians want to implement in Cuba, there has also been talk of a joint commercial company, based on foreign investment to distribute food, chemicals and other items with the participation of the Cimex group, although no contract has yet been signed, and it is already known how these things end. Another investment project, also to be developed, is a hotel for the exclusive use of Russians, justified by the return of tourism from this country to the Island. The authorities have denied this information.

Okay, then. Russia’s relations with other countries, including Cuba, are usually structured on a framework of obscurity and little transparency that, at times like the present, with the war in Ukraine and the international embargo, multiplies significantly. Geopolitics also has a very important influence. Russians are not Cubans, nor are Cubans Russians. It will be difficult to know exactly what the Russian plans consist of, but there is no doubt that they may be compromised by what happens in Russia in the immediate future. Most likely, they will amount to nothing.

*The Ordering Task is a collection of measures that include eliminating the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC), leaving the Cuban peso as the only national currency, raising prices, raising salaries (but not as much as prices), opening stores that take payment only in hard currency, which must be in the form of specially issued pre-paid debit cards, and a broad range of other measures targeted to different elements of the Cuban economy. 

Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba

https://havanatimes.org/opinion/what-can-happen-with-the-russian-economic-plans-in-cuba/