:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/M75DNMOKTBBTBOAHKCZTGCXVO4.jpg "Russia calls on the US to lift the blockade to end protests in Cuba")
Moscow today called on Washington to lift the blockade on Cuba, a measure that would serve to put an end to the massive demonstrations that have shaken the island since last Sunday.
“If in Washington they are really concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba and want to help ordinary Cubans, we must begin by repealing the blockade, rejected from the beginning by the entire international community.” Russian diplomacy declared in a statement.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zajárova, urged Washington to “take objective positions, put an end to hypocrisy and double-minded policies.”
He also demanded “to allow the Cubans, their government and their people to solve problems and decide their fate.”
Zajárova pointed out that the only thing the United States and its followers must do is “not meddle in the affairs of a sovereign state.”
Thousands of Cubans took to the streets on Sunday to protest against the government shouting “freedom!” in an unprecedented day that resulted in dozens of arrests and clashes after Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel ordered his supporters to come out to confront the protesters.
The protests, the strongest that have occurred in Cuba since the so-called “maleconazo” of August 1994, took place with the country plunged into a serious economic and health crisis, with the pandemic out of control and a severe shortage of food, medicine and other basic products, in addition to long power outages.
Zajárova criticized the official statements of the White House regarding the situation on the island, which blame the Cuban government for being responsible for the instability in the Caribbean nation.
“Washington’s special cynicism lies in the fact that it carried out a strategy of strangulation of the country, discrimination against its people and destruction of the economy throughout the time of revolutionary Cuba’s existence,” he denounced.
The Russian diplomat recalled that the US economic embargo against Cuba was intensified with restrictions such as the extraterritorial Helms-Burton law (Cuban Freedom and Democratic Solidarity Law) that criminalized trade between the island and companies from third countries.