Moscow and Beijing Both Go on Record

Russia and China formally condemned the U.S. indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro — both using notably sharp language.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media Thursday that the pressure being applied to Cuba, including the indictment, "cannot be condoned." His full quote: "We believe that under no circumstances should such methods — which border on violence — be used against either former or current heads of state."

China's foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said the U.S. should "stop threatening force at every turn" and that Beijing "firmly supports Cuba." He said Beijing opposes "any attempt by external forces to exert pressure" on Havana.

Two permanent members of the UN Security Council, both with nuclear arsenals, publicly backed Cuba against U.S. legal action.

Geopolitical Dimensions

Left-leaning outlets are covering this primarily as a Cuba humanitarian story — blackouts, food shortages, oppressed people. The coverage is real but underplays the geopolitical stakes.

Russia and China aren't defending Raúl Castro because they like him. They're establishing a precedent argument: that the U.S. cannot use its courts to reach foreign heads of state. That argument has long-term implications far beyond Cuba.

Conservative outlets are treating the indictment as a pure win for Trump's pressure campaign — without asking whether a 1996 incident is the right legal vehicle for a 2025 foreign policy goal, or whether the indictment is prosecutable in any meaningful way. Castro is not getting extradited. Ever.

The Supreme Court Ruling on Cuba Property Claims

The Supreme Court ruled this week that lawsuits can proceed over U.S. assets seized by Fidel Castro's regime in 1960, according to The New York Times. The Trump administration backed the case brought by Havana Docks Corporation, which is seeking compensation for property confiscated decades ago.

American-owned entities that lost property in Cuba's 1959-1960 nationalization wave now have a legal path forward in U.S. courts. The total claims involved are enormous — estimates of confiscated U.S. property from that era run into the billions of dollars.

Combined with the Castro indictment and oil sanctions, this represents a coordinated legal and economic squeeze — not just isolated headlines.

The Pressure Campaign By the Numbers

The Trump administration cut off Cuba's oil supplies in January 2025, according to BBC News. The result has been extended nationwide blackouts and food shortages that are measurably worsening life for ordinary Cubans.

Back in Washington, Republicans in Congress are simultaneously racing to pass a $72 billion immigration enforcement package, according to NPR. The reconciliation push is consuming Congressional bandwidth, which means Cuba policy is largely being driven from the White House and Justice Department — NOT through legislation.

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who just lost his primary after Trump backed his opponent, has been a notable voice of dissent — opposing the ballroom funding add-on and casting votes that defy the president on the way out the door. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told reporters Trump's attacks on incumbent Republicans could "backfire" and hurt the party in November.

Cuba policy is essentially on autopilot in Congress.

What the Cuban People Are Actually Experiencing

Many Cubans found out about the indictment through dimming smartphone screens — because the blackouts cut power before they could watch it on TV, according to The New York Times, which spoke to residents in Havana.

Yoandy Benítez Ramirez, a 24-year-old tobacco factory worker in Havana, told the Times simply: "This has to change."

Cubans are split on whether the U.S. charges are legitimate. But they share one thing: exhaustion. Blackouts, hunger, and a health crisis that predates the oil cutoff and has gotten worse since.

The humanitarian situation is real and it's bad. Cuban suffering stems from both a 66-year-old communist regime that has failed its people and a U.S. sanctions policy that squeezes the civilian population hardest. Neither side escapes responsibility for this.

The Indictment and Its Broader Context

The Castro indictment was always a legal long shot — there's no extradition treaty, and Castro isn't traveling to the U.S. anytime soon. But it's one piece of a much bigger pressure campaign that now includes Supreme Court-backed property lawsuits and an economic stranglehold via oil sanctions.

Russia and China are NOT ignoring this. They're watching the U.S. use courts and economics as weapons against a client state, and they are publicly objecting — on the record.

The pressure campaign could be working, or it could be creating a three-way confrontation the U.S. hasn't fully thought through.