Cuba Withstands an Unconventional War

By Felipe de J. Pérez on July 24, 2026

“We don’t like being threatened… We don’t like being intimidated. We don’t like it… Besides, our people have long since lost any sense of what fear is.”—Fidel Castro Ruz, December 20, 1980 (http://www.fidelcastro.cu/es/discursos/discurso-pronunciado-en-el-acto-clausura-del-segundo-congreso-del-partido-comunista-de)

The Cuban Constitution prohibits armed aggression against another country. This is the choice of self-defense, internationalism, and peace that underpins the Cuban Revolution’s commitment to peaceful transition. But our resolve has been constantly attacked. Today, the country’s life, peace, security, economy, and governance are under intense and constant siege.

Cuba is resisting an unconventional war. The U.S. genocidal policy combines the intensification of the commercial, financial, and technological blockade—and, for the past six months, the energy blockade—with a series of subversive operations and psychological, cognitive, and ideological-cultural warfare.

Every day, the media reports on military aggression, and so-called social media platforms are flooded with direct military threats. This is done by President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, generals, and “national security” officials.

The imperialists underestimate the history of the emergence and endurance of a nation like ours—a nation that has come into being for itself and by itself—engaged in constant confrontation from 1510 to the present, fighting against invasions, occupations, and aggressions by powerful empires.

We are a people of peace who know how to defend that peace.

A people who have fought for their right to exist as a nation in independence and sovereignty. A people who have committed themselves to peace, independence, sovereignty, and the happiness of other sister nations.

Recent History

The Cuban nation fought for thirty years for its independence in the 19th century. In the world’s most prestigious military academies, one cannot study the 19th century without being amazed by the campaigns of Generalissimo Máximo Gómez Báez and his lieutenant, Major General Antonio Maceo y Grajales. We defeated the largest concentration of forces and resources that Spanish colonialism deployed against the independence movements throughout the Americas!

In the War of Liberation, starting with twelve men and seven rifles, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz founded and organized the Rebel Army as the fighting vanguard, which reenacted the feats of Gómez and Maceo and mobilized a powerful network of resistance and clandestine struggle—comprising armed militias, union activists, and peasants—to fight in both the countryside and the cities. We defeated a well-trained and well-armed army of 30,000 troops, supplied with weapons and field guidance by the U.S. government’s military mission. We defeated a repressive network of police forces and paramilitary assassination squads, created under the direct guidance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in coordination with the local station of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Havana, as well as in Mexico, Venezuela, and other countries in the region, where solidarity and material aid for the Cuban revolutionary cause were being channeled.

Following the victory on January 1, 1959, in faithful application of the Leninist principle that a revolution is only as strong as its ability to defend itself, the Cuban Revolutionary Government consolidated the people’s armed forces. On October 16, 1959, the Council of Ministers, at Fidel’s request, approved Law 600, which established the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (Minfar). Commander Raúl Castro Ruz was appointed minister. Minfar’s first major mission was to organize and train the National Revolutionary Militias (MNR), which were established on October 26, 1959. Building on the victorious Rebel Army, we forged a national army with a strong foundation of volunteerism and mass patriotic service.

The victory over the powerful invading brigade that landed in April 1961 at Playa Girón and Playa Larga consolidated, through mass heroism, the veteran guerrillas of the Sierra and the Llano with the new generation of militiamen, born after January 1, 1959, in the heat of the struggle against state terrorism from the country to the north.

Let us never forget that on April 16, 1961, at the funeral in Havana for the victims of the attacks on our air bases in the west and at the Santiago de Cuba airport—carried out by mercenary planes flying the insignia of the Cuban Air Force—just hours after the assault on our homeland, with the militia’s weapons raised high, Fidel proclaimed the socialist nature of the Revolution. Let us never forget that the heroes who gave their lives at Girón and Playa Larga did so for socialism.

In that April of 1961, soldiers and militiamen stood guard throughout the country for the sake of socialism. In that April, for the sake of socialism, with their hearts on their sleeves, our fighters from the nascent State Security agencies—with the resolute support of the revolutionary people—went house to house, farm to farm, and arrested and safely detained the elements of the internal counterrevolution. In 62 hours, we defeated the enemy. And the National Literacy Campaign did not come to a halt, as the counterrevolutionaries had hoped.

Spanish internationalists, who fought in the Red Army, and seasoned Soviet officers—also veterans of World War II—shared their experience and knowledge with us.

We will never forget the Soviet internationalists who stood by us during the October Crisis of 1962, ready to sacrifice themselves alongside our people. For them, Fidel’s order was clear, and after the Commander-in-Chief announced it, they shot down the first enemy aircraft that dared to violate our airspace. We know of the fury of these brothers in arms—expressed in the harshest words in the Russian language!—when, in their trenches, they learned that their country’s leadership had decided to negotiate and withdraw the missiles behind the Cubans’ backs.

Our People’s Army of soldiers and militiamen, along with the State Security agencies, carried out the “cleansing” of the Escambray and other regions where the CIA had planted armed bands of assassins. The young literacy workers tortured and murdered in 1961 are a testament to the cruelty of those stateless individuals. We won this “low-intensity” internal war around 1965 with the defeat of the last groups of criminals. Dozens of Cuban men and women sacrificed their precious lives in that armed battle and in those that followed.

The Cuban State has documented and legally proven the systematic terrorist aggression against Cuban citizens and property both within and outside the national territory. Three thousand four hundred seventy-eight people have died, and two thousand nine-nine have been affected as a result of the violent schemes of Washington and its henchmen in the Cuban-American terrorist mafia—created and financed by the CIA.

Our Debt to Humanity

The Cuban Revolution repaid its historic debt to humanity, to the movements and internationalist patriots who joined our centuries-old struggles for national liberation, sovereignty, and peace. Beginning in 1959, on our own American soil, we reenacted a new Bolivarian feat in support of anti-oligarchic and anti-imperialist guerrilla movements.

At the request of friendly governments, our volunteer troops went to fight for the independence and sovereignty of other peoples. The first internationalist mission, consisting of a combat unit of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), took place in Algeria in 1963, shortly after the country had been liberated from French colonialism. The second mission was carried out in Syria in 1973, in the face of Israeli expansionism.

In October 1966, in the midst of the war of liberation against the Yankees (1965–1975), President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado and Minfar Minister Commander Raúl Castro visited Vietnam. In September 1973, Fidel visited the war zone in the south. Our leaders went to express the friendship and solidarity of the Cuban people, to learn from Vietnamese heroism and ingenuity, and also to coordinate the support they needed. Cuban engineers and military specialists joined in the construction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail—the network of tunnels and roads that was decisive in the remarkable mobility of the armed forces of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. Our internationalists created the marvel of bridges “invisible” to reconnaissance and attack by U.S. aircraft, which ensured the passage of forces and supplies for the great final offensive against Saigon.

And we returned to the sub-Saharan Africa of our ancestors, led by Commander Ernesto Che Guevara. From Kigoma (on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika) on April 24, 1965, Che arrived by boat on Congolese soil in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Raúl has recounted: “More than fifty combat operations are recorded on the service record of Che’s Column, who, under the pseudonym Tatu, operated in those new theaters of war with the mastery and tactical and strategic acumen that made him a true architect of guerrilla warfare.”

The first unit, serving as a reserve for Che’s Column, was the Patricio Lumumba Battalion of Cuban internationalists, stationed in what is now the Republic of the Congo, where military aid had been requested by the country’s government and by the leadership of the Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), which had its headquarters there.

In Brazzaville, Che’s idea of creating a school for African fighters took shape. There, the leaders and the first groups of male and female guerrillas were forged; together with Cuban advisers, they would shape the anti-colonial struggle and secure independence in Guinea-Bissau (1973) and Angola (1975).

Operation Carlota was launched in defense of Angola’s independence. With the country invaded by powerful columns of the South African Army, a thousand MPLA fighters, and 60 Cuban advisers, under the command of Commander Raúl Díaz-Argüelles García, thwarted the U.S.-South African plan to reach Luanda from the south before November 11, 1975—the day scheduled for the declaration of independence and the official assumption of power by the revolutionaries led by António Agostinho Neto Kilamba.

News of the heroic sacrifice of Cubans and Angolans in the face of the South African invaders, along with a request from the MPLA, led to the launch of Operation Carlota on November 5, 1975.

Carlota, the heroic slave who was martyred on November 5 in Triunvirato, Matanzas, in 1843, would evoke the roots and historical significance of “Operation Carlota.”

It took just four months to expel the invaders from the north and the south. On March 27, 1976, the last South African unit left Angola. Cuban forces began their gradual withdrawal from the RPA, leaving the defense of the country in the hands of the Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA); however, at the request of the Angolan government, new threats to the country’s independence made the presence of Cuban volunteer troops necessary.

Angola would become a bastion of freedom in the Southern Cone: 20,000 guerrilla fighters from Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa were trained there, with the collaboration of the FAPLA, the FAR, and the armed forces of the USSR. In April 1980, the patriots of Zimbabwe succeeded in defeating the racist white-minority regime, an ally of South Africa, and secured the country’s definitive independence.

While Operation Carlota was underway, we responded positively in July 1977 to the request from the Ethiopian authorities, whose territory had been attacked by pro-imperialist forces of the Somali regime, In an impressive act of international solidarity, Cuba sent 15,000 volunteer soldiers to fight alongside Ethiopian forces. The Internationalist Operation in support of Ethiopia will be named Baraguá, as a fitting tribute to the glorious act of revolutionary intransigence led by General Antonio Maceo, who refused to make a pact with the Spanish crown without independence or the abolition of slavery.

In seven weeks, Ethiopian and Cuban forces liberated the occupied territory of Ogaden, which spanned more than 320,000 square kilometers and included dozens of towns. The aggressors were forced to retreat.

In the second half of 1987, the last major invasion against Angola took place. South Africa and the United States, with the support of the counterrevolutionary forces of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), launched a dangerous offensive and managed to encircle a significant group of FAPLA troops and Soviet advisers in the Cuito Cuanavale region. Faced with the gravity of the military situation, President José Eduardo dos Santos requested assistance from Cuban troops.

As in 1975, the leadership of the Revolution decided to grant the requested aid. The decision—well-considered, firm, and bold—was intended to rescue the forces on the verge of annihilation and force the apartheid regime to withdraw from Angola once again. The leadership of the Cuban Revolution set out to inflict such a crushing defeat on the South Africans that it would secure a definitive peace along the Angolan border, accelerate Namibia’s independence, and bring the South African people and the African National Congress (ANC) closer to victory over the racist regime.

Between December 1987 and March 1988, the bloody battle of Cuito Cuanavale took place, which is considered one of the most significant battles in military history, second only to the battles of World War II (1939–1945). The victory in that battle on March 23, 1988, was the turning point for the liberation of the continent.

With patriotic pride, we can once again affirm for the 20th century the martial glory of the 19th century. Indeed, even today, in the world’s most prestigious military academies, the military campaigns of Cuban internationalism in Angola—and also in Ethiopia—are studied with awe. They study the Battle of Luanda in November 1975, the campaign in the Ogaden in 1977, and, of course, the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. These operations were directed directly by Commander-in-Chief Fidel from the Minfar operations room, with the active participation of Army General Raúl Castro. And on the battlefield, Fidel and Raúl were supported by a detachment of brilliant generals, guided by the leadership tradition bequeathed to us by the mambises and their successors in the Rebel Army, where the commander leads while also fighting alongside the troops as just another soldier.

We guaranteed Angola’s independence, sovereignty, peace, and development. We put an end to the myth of the power and terror of the white mercenaries in the Southern African Cone, and we defeated the powerful army of racist South Africa—which even possessed nuclear weapons—and the puppet forces that collaborated with them. The South Africans were forced to accept United Nations Security Council Resolution 435, adopted a decade earlier, in 1978, calling for a ceasefire and the holding of elections supervised by the United Nations (UN) in South-West Africa, which was under South African control—a process that ultimately led to Namibia’s independence. We dealt a fatal blow to apartheid and contributed to the democratization of the new South Africa.

More than three hundred eighty thousand Cubans served on voluntary military missions in Africa. Counting both military personnel and civilians—who were victims of terrorist acts on dozens of occasions—half a million compatriots offered their solidarity to the brotherly peoples of the mother continent of humanity. This latter figure was the documented and attested count provided by Jorge Risquet Valdés, one of the heroes of that great Fidelist epic.

“From April 24, 1965—as Risquet told me in one of his wonderful talks—when Che and his thirteen comrades at the vanguard of Column One crossed Lake Tanganyika and set foot on the soil of Lumumba’s homeland, until the day ‘Operation Carlota’ concluded, a quarter of a century, plus one year, plus one month, plus one day had passed. In those 26 years, there was not a single day when the Cuban fighters stopped taking up arms in Africa.” No fewer than 2,655 Cubans died on this mission.

The unconventional war waged against us

In addition to Cuba’s inclusion on the infamous list of state sponsors of terrorism, we have been accused of being an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security. The punitive measures against institutions, companies, and party and government officials reached their climax with the fabrication of a perverse criminal case against Army General Raúl Castro, and they continue. The latest “executive order” issued by the fascist president on May 1 has extraordinarily reinforced the web of extraterritorial measures designed to impose a terrible siege of isolation and a commercial and financial blockade.

Old and new lackeys in the region are being rallied to reimpose the isolation they managed to orchestrate in the 1960s. The pro-U.S. right wing is clamoring in Western capitals for governments to join the extraterritorial application of the blockade. In the European Union, a fascist consensus is gaining ground to withdraw cooperation agreements with Cuba.

The fascist government of the country to the north has once again allowed terrorist actions to be planned on its territory. A new and dangerous “development” has emerged in the form of war propaganda operations, which include highly publicized preparations by the empire’s armed forces to attack and intervene militarily within the country. The range of pretexts for attacking us is growing… Is it because we’re a Russian military base? Or a Chinese one? Is it because we have one weapons system or another…? The latest is the presence in the country of “Iranian drones”?

The empire’s territory may be infested with all kinds of offensive weapons; its missiles would strike Cuba in a matter of minutes; waves of modern aircraft and drones stand ready to destroy and kill… And yet Cuba is not allowed to have defense systems or one type of weapon or another? It is the same imperial logic and the same playbook used against Iraq, Libya, and most recently against Iran. U.S. public opinion is being primed to support a war against Cuba.

Millions of dollars are being funneled into the financial and logistical support of mercenary dissidents. The agents and henchmen of the paid-for counterrevolution are swarming so-called social media networks with messages of hate, distortions, slander, and sickening schadenfreude over our material hardships, along with protests by a population pushed to the brink of survival. They are waging a campaign based on corruption and on shortcomings and mistakes that are not attributable to the blockade. They seek to foster discouragement, anger, disunity, and cultural and ideological demobilization.

Another new form of aggression involves the Cuban-American mafia and its most recent emulators of hate and cyberterrorism, who have taken it upon themselves to recruit mercenaries from among domestic criminals.

It is very clear that the Trump administration’s ultimate goal in applying pressure through the blockade is not merely economic collapse. A humanitarian crisis, a social upheaval, a mass exodus, and/or a combination of these explosive factors are sufficient to justify military intervention.

There can be no doubt whatsoever about the preparations for a probable military aggression, including the blatant threat to kidnap or assassinate Army General Raúl Castro and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.

National Security

Even in peacetime, Cuba has had to establish a system of measures to control and protect national security in response to the challenges of espionage, terrorism, and mercenary activities.

Legal and criminal instruments have been adopted to address the Helms-Burton Act, internal subversion, and terrorism. Cuba has implemented legislative, institutional, administrative, and other measures aimed at preventing and punishing all terrorist acts and activities, as well as those directly or indirectly related to them—including those linked to the financing of terrorism, border protection and surveillance, illicit arms trafficking, judicial cooperation, adherence to international legal instruments regarding the prevention and suppression of international terrorism, and the adoption of specific legislation on the matter.

The debate over the retention of the death penalty has centered on this issue. So has the punishment of mercenaries and proven collaborators in imperialist aggression. For these measures, carried out in strict adherence to the rule of law—with all internationally recognized safeguards for due process and the exercise of the accused’s rights—we are accused of totalitarianism and dictatorship.

There is utter shamelessness on the part of those who seek to misjudge us: The legislation and actions of law enforcement agencies in the United States, the criminal conduct of U.S. police and repressive forces—and that of their “colleagues” in capitalist countries—as fully documented in news reports and on social media, leave no room for doubt.

In Cuba, protest is a constitutional right. The unconventional war we are resisting and the genocide of the intensified blockade—which makes it even more criminal—may provoke incidents of protest; in fact, we are already seeing them sporadically. The crushing weight of families’ needs, people’s exhaustion, propaganda and cognitive warfare, as well as errors in communication and political attention to communities, are to blame for these incidents—which the very murderers who provoke them self-servingly attempt to exaggerate.

In my neighborhood, in the humble, working-class area of El Canal del Cerro, there are no protests, nor have I heard the sound of a “cauldron” being banged—but if it does happen, I’ll be there alongside my neighbors, with my pot, banging it as loud as I can, and denouncing—in a loud voice and with the language the occasion demands—Trump, Marco Rubio, and the cohort of criminals who are trying to subdue us. In Cuba, the internal counterrevolution, the criminals, and the mercenaries paid by the empire will have no chance to sow chaos and terror in our streets and squares.

The War of the Entire People

The Cuban State has been implementing measures for decades to protect itself from an armed attack by the United States. Our State and government of peace are perfectly trained to transition in an organized manner to a state of war and to align its entire structure toward the supreme task of defending the homeland. We have fortified the entire country; we would have preferred to allocate the resources used for this to building housing and many other social and cultural projects. But preserving peace by making the empire aware of the cost of an invasion has forced us to make these sacrifices.

As a result of studying our traditions of combat, new insights, and the evaluation of the resistance and victories of heroic peoples such as the Vietnamese, we created the “War of the Entire People” Military Doctrine.

In terms of professional personnel, we have a small army of specialist cadres and commanders, supplemented by young soldiers performing military service and young women who volunteer for that service. The military structure for internal security has a similar composition.

There is fluid cooperation between defense agencies, political and mass organizations, and popular associations of the revolutionary civil society.

Those who hope to seize the Revolution from us by exploiting the younger generation’s supposed abdication forget that the forces in permanent combat readiness are composed mainly of young people who, until just yesterday, were our high school and technical school students—the sons and daughters of our children, the grandchildren of those of us who are now in our sixties and seventies.

The armed forces number in the thousands of combatants: officers, noncommissioned officers, and reserve soldiers, plus militiamen and brigade members at the level of every neighborhood and rural community, organized into defense zones, with weapons and combat equipment deployed throughout each territory—maintained and in top working order, ready for defense.

We do not possess the sophisticated weapons and technology currently available to the U.S. war machine. But we know how to use what we have very well. “What makes a weapon valuable are the convictions of the men and women who carry it,” Fidel would remind us. The expertise developed by the FAR’s academies, research centers, and military industry has made groundbreaking innovations and new weapons and systems possible. Those who attack us will be in for some surprises when it comes to the weaponry of this small and heroic nation.

Cuba’s defensive shield is regularly practiced in military meetings and exercises, and on a rotating basis once a month during the Díaz de la Defensa drills. And it does more than just guarantee the defense and armed survival of the Revolution. It is the school and cornerstone of our patriotic tradition; it is the foundation of the ideology of the Cuban Revolution.

In Cuba, as in most countries, there are laws that require able-bodied individuals to participate in the defense of their country in the event of war or invasion. But we are convinced that defending the homeland is more than a legal duty—it is an honor. Everyone who takes up arms in Cuba, everyone who participates in the armed defense apparatus, will do so out of conviction.

Civil Defense

International humanitarian law exists for situations of war. We know full well that the imperialists do not abide by it. The wars waged in recent decades by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against the peoples of the Global South and even within Europe itself, as well as the 15 consecutive months of genocide against the Palestinian people, demonstrate the imperialists’ violation of rights and their impunity.

In revolutionary Cuba, defense preparedness includes measures to protect and safeguard the lives of the people. The revolutionary state’s efforts are organized through Civil Defense, whose mission is to protect people’s lives in disaster situations and under exceptional circumstances such as terrorist attacks and wartime. Children, the elderly, the sick, and their families constitute a population that must also be educated and trained to participate in and contribute to the preservation of their own lives and those of their loved ones.

In the event of an attack—as occurs in all war scenarios—there will be individuals capable of participating in defense efforts who do not do so for family, religious, or political reasons. And these Cuban men and women will also be protected.

The agencies responsible for evacuation and assistance in times of war have updated their strategies and plans based on the study of imperialist military aggressions suffered by civilian populations, including recent attacks on cities and rural areas, most notably those against the Gaza Strip and Iran. A top priority is creating conditions in safe locations where infants, pregnant women, the elderly, and vulnerable individuals can be protected and provided with the essentials for survival. A drill is regularly conducted on Defense Days to prepare the network of medical facilities for wartime operations, so that healthcare personnel can accompany citizens to these shelters.

Civil defense training for the general public consists of publicizing and practicing useful measures and rules of conduct necessary for responding to attacks on the civilian population and minimizing risks, impacts, and consequences.

Families are prepared so that, from the very first stage of alert regarding a possible attack, they can take a series of actions to protect their members (including pets and farm animals) and their property. They are encouraged to have a family bag or backpack ready with essential survival items, along with a first-aid kit.

They are informed of the locations of shelters and how to take shelter there. There are also guidelines for responding to a surprise attack—what to do, where to take cover, and how to do so: “Do not take cover under a bridge; do not go to tall buildings; find a wall or load-bearing structure inside a building; lie face down; protect your head; open your mouth to reduce damage from a shock wave…”

“Protect, resist, survive, and prevail” is the motto under which the Cuban Civil Defense operates, organizes, and educates.

If We Are Attacked

The very same press that tries to intimidate us reports that there are level-headed voices in the Pentagon who argue against waging war against us, given the human, material, and political costs that an attack on Cuba would entail for them. It is true that the lethal technology they possess could destroy our country without putting their own military personnel at risk, but there can be no victory without the physical occupation of the country.

U.S. analysts know that, in the event of an attack, within the first four hours the Revolutionary Armed Forces are capable of arming and bringing more than 200,000 ready, regularly trained officers and soldiers—workers, farmers, professionals, and college students—to full combat readiness.

They have calculated how many more will take up arms in 8 hours, in 16… They know that we will deploy every patriot capable of fighting—two, three, four million… They know this all too well.

It would be an invasion carried out in a theater of operations spanning the entire archipelago—its countryside and cities—a scenario prepared for defense, with resistance that is both staggered and simultaneous and massive. A war waged by an entire people, millimeter by millimeter of land, in every military region, in every defensive system, in every rural or urban defense zone. They know we are prepared to resist and continue the fight even with the country occupied.

Our enemies know that, from the very first attack, the war would also move to the sea; that, to the north, the Florida Strait would become a new “Strait of Hormuz” for them, bringing the multimillion-dollar shipping industry to a standstill. And in the south, the conflict would also jeopardize the entire supply and trade chain that passes through the Gulf to and from the U.S. coast… Pentagon analysts know that some of our weapons, inherited from the Soviet era, are capable of striking targets in Florida and on the mainland. We regret this, but they also know that, in the attempt to occupy—in whatever territory they manage to occupy, and for as long as the occupation lasts—many of the soldiers and, above all, the officers of the U.S. empire will meet their deaths on our soil, in our skies, and in our seas.

In addition to officers and soldiers, weapons and technology, defense schools, and training exercises, the watchful eyes of the patriotic nation remain on alert 24 hours a day.

The Combat Order

Euphoric over their act of war against the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela, the fascists in the Trump administration are publicizing the pre-dawn flight of Delta Force helicopters over Caracas, the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro Moro and his wife Cilia Flores, and the simultaneous attacks in the states of Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira. They fail to mention—though it is already known and documented—that the Armed Forces of our sister nation did not receive the order to repel the attack. Those who did fight were the Cuban military personnel stationed at Fort Tiuna and defending the Venezuelan president. Of these heroes, 32 gave their lives. “The Cubans are tough,” Trump had to acknowledge.

No combatant, no patriot, has to wait in Cuba for an order to repel an act of war, an attack, an infiltration, or a counterrevolutionary action. The order to fight has been given: Fight with all available means, make the active forces of the enemy army and their collaborators pay for their participation in the aggression, and do so constantly, for as long as necessary, until the enemy is defeated, forced to abandon the homeland’s territory, and compelled to cease all forms of armed aggression against the nation.

Any punitive operation—any attempt to kidnap or assassinate Army General Raúl Castro or President Díaz-Canel—will be forcefully repelled. It will be considered a declaration of war, and the enemy will receive a response in the locations and in all the ways that the Revolution’s command decides.

Source: Network in Defense of Humanity – Cuba, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English