May 18, 2026 from Havana
Network in Defense of Humanity
Statement by the Cuban Chapter of the Network in Defense of Humanity
Imperialism coldly calculates its timing. Every step is part of its historical obsession with seizing control of Cuba.
To the historic blockade—the longest in history—it added a fuel blockade, using blackmail and threats against anyone who attempts to sell oil to Cuba. To this, it added a series of sanctions between January 29 and May 7.
Amid this landscape of calculated deprivation bordering on suffocation, and amidst the titanic efforts of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba to install solar energy sources, a ship arrived in April, sent by Russia, which helped alleviate the severe energy crisis.
It is no coincidence that as fuel ran out and summer approached, the Trump administration played two cards: requesting permission for the CIA director’s visit and offering $100 million in humanitarian aid.
Amid enormous pressure, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statement has become a mantra: “Cuba is a failed state.” Added to this is Trump’s belief: “They will come to us.”
Marco Rubio pulled the warning out of his bag of lies: “Chinese and Russian bases established in Cuba are a threat to the Western Hemisphere.”
It is all absolutely false; they all know it: from the congressmen who visited Cuba to the mainstream media.
It is not a diagnosis; it is the perverse planning of a decadent empire that believes it has found its ripe fruit. Now, the new narrative has begun: “Cuban drones would be activated.” They are trying to prepare the final blow.
Their defeat in Iran, the approaching midterm elections, the solidarity of more than six million Cubans ready to defend their sovereignty, their failure to spark an internal uprising, and the realization that the people continue to work and resist have them desperate.
The anti-Cuban fascist minority based in Florida has finally found a government to ride roughshod over, pressure, and try to subdue by blackmailing with their votes. They want a quick victory. They want to bring back the casinos, drugs, and prostitution. They want the port, the schools, the nationalized properties.
It is the empire’s rush when it feels time slipping away.
A fierce blockade lasting more than six decades has not helped them understand the cost of their punitive and failed policy. They do not understand what kind of people they are dealing with.
This is the same people and the same Rebel Army that, after years of internationalist struggle in Africa, sat down at a negotiating table where imperialism sought to wring from them the certainty of whether or not they would cross the Namibian border. And the Cuban leader replied: “We cannot say that we will do it, nor that we will not do it.”
They will never know our silent decision.
They will never know the sacrifices we are willing to make.
That internationalism, the legacy of Fidel and Raúl, did not expand our geographical borders, nor did it bring back gold and silver; it only brought to our soil the dead we gave up. But it forever expanded our political borders, of unparalleled solidarity and respect.
And that is the fact that the empire, in its desperation, fails to grasp: that an invasion of Cuba will not be directed solely against Cuba. It will be against all the peoples of the world who are beginning to sign up and enlist, just as they did at the Bay of Pigs to defend Cuba against aggression.
The resistance will not be confined to a single trench: it will multiply in every corner of Our America and beyond.
Cuba knows the script because it has endured it for more than sixty years. It knows that behind every accusation lies a plan for domination, behind every fabricated “threat” lies a fleet ready to set sail, and behind every “failed nation” lies the greed of those who dream of dividing up its spoils.
But this people is no stranger to resistance. It comes from far back and remembers where its first mission began.
When U.S. rockets fell on the home of the humble peasant Mario Sariol in the Sierra Maestra, Fidel spoke the words that still ring with the same urgency today: “When I saw the rockets they fired at Mario’s house, I swore to myself that the Americans would pay dearly for what they are doing. When this war is over, a much longer and greater war will begin for me: the war I am going to wage against them. I realize that this will be my true destiny.”
That certainty was not an emergency slogan; it was the founding compass of the Revolution. And that compass is what continues to guide us. They want our collapse. They want our humiliation. They have the wrong people. They have the wrong history.
Only when they attempt the final blow will they know that Cuba still stands, clinging to its first mission, which is also its last line of defense: the fight against imperialism.
Onward to victory always!
Source: Cuba en Resumen