2026-02-18 19:06
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2026-02-18 19:06
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in secret talks with Raul Castro's grandson, Raul Guillermo Rodriguez, the Axios website wrote on Wednesday, citing people close to the matter. On Wednesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez met Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
– I wouldn't call it “negotiations” but rather “talks” about the future – a high-ranking official of US President Donald Trump's administration told the website, referring to Rubio's talks with Castro's grandson.
Axios noted that talks between Rubio and Rauel Guillermo Rodriguez Castro bypass official government channels. According to the website, the Trump administration wants to establish direct contact with young representatives of the Cuban profit-oriented elites for whom communism has failed.
The US State Department did not respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the Axios report. The Cuban side sent the website a statement denying these talks.
On Wednesday in Moscow, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Bruno Rodriguez met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, and later with Putin.
Lavrov told Rodriguez that Russia opposes the US blockade of the island and calls for negotiations, Reuters reported.
AFP noted that Cuba's poor economic situation further deteriorated when Washington in January placed Havana with an embargo on oil imports from Venezuela and threatened other possible suppliers.
Moreover, many airlines have recently suspended connections to Cuba, explaining their decision by concerns about the lack of aviation fuel and regular power outages. This worsened the situation of tourism, which is an important sector of the Cuban economy.
Since the 1959 Cuban revolution, when guerrillas led by Fidel Castro defeated U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, the Soviet Union supported the communist government in Havana.
After 1991, Moscow's relations with Havana remained strong, but – as noted by the AFP agency – with the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in 2022, they became even more important for the Kremlin. (PAP)
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