Day: September 19, 2025

• Kyiv says Cuba is “at the very top” of countries supplying thousands of foreign mercenaries to Russia.
• Ukrainian intelligence said the average Cuban mercenary is 35 years old and is paid $2,000 a month.
• Their assessment was for a briefing by US lawmakers aiming to pressure Cuba’s ties to the Krmelin.

Ukrainian intelligence officials told Congress on Wednesday that Russia has recruited at least 20,000 Cuban citizens to fight as mercenaries.

Andriy Yusov, a representative for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, or HUR, told US House representatives in a national security briefing that Cuba is ranked “at the very top” among countries from which Russia sources its mercenaries.

“Currently, our good intelligence tells us about at least 20,000 people from Cuba that have already filled the documents and have been recruited to fight for Russia,” Yusov said, per one of his colleagues who translated his presentation for the congressional panel.

His assessment underscores the challenges that both Russia and Ukraine face in keeping their front lines staffed as the war drags into its fourth year. Moscow has increasingly turned to foreign troops from areas such as North Korea, the Middle East, and Africa as it launches frequent but costly ground assaults.

Yusov said that Ukraine has confirmed the identities of at least 1,038 Cuban mercenaries who signed contracts between June 2023 and February 2024.

He did not detail how HUR obtained this information, though Ukrainian officials later at the briefing implied that many of these fighters were killed or captured.

The average age of the Cuban fighters is 35, and their average monthly wage is $2,000, Yusov added.

“This is the age where people should be building families and working hard, but unfortunately, they choose to go for war,” he told the panel.

The spokesman said that Ukraine also had records showing that at least 250 Cuban fighters had remained on the front lines even after their contracts expired.

Yusov said HUR’s information on the mercenaries’ survivability isn’t complete, but added that current data shows the typical contracted foreigner who is killed while fighting for Russia meets their death within 140 to 150 days.

“It is beneficial for Putin’s regime to attract Cuban mercenaries,” Yusov said. “So if a foreigner dies, there are no social payouts and no responsibility. There are no relatives inside Russia who are unhappy with the war.”

Russian leader Vladimir Putin has enacted several new laws since 2022 that codify payouts for wounded soldiers and families of those killed in the war. While the Kremlin doesn’t officially publish data on these expenses, independent analysts say they’re likely placing a significant strain on Russia’s economy.

Maryan Zablotskyy, a Ukrainian parliament member attending the panel, also displayed several documents that he said shed insight into how Cuban mercenaries are being treated, including a list of fighters’ names, ages, the date of their death, and when they signed their contracts.

Another document showed a plea from a Cuban woman to a Russian ombudsman for the location of her husband, contracts for Cuban women, and Russian judicial records of a local recruiter who testified that she helped to hire 6,000 to 7,000 Cuban people.

“You can even see just from one confirmed recruiter how many in thousands they are promising to Russia, in terms of mercenaries,” Zablotskyy said.

The briefing on Wednesday, held by Republican representatives for southern Florida, aimed to pressure the international community to impose punitive measures on the Cuban government for its ties to the Kremlin.

Both US representatives and Ukrainian officials accused Cuba’s government of at least implicitly supporting Russia’s war effort due to the number of Cuban citizens joining Moscow’s ranks.

Cuba’s foreign ministry said in 2023 that it had launched proceedings against a group that it accused of trafficking its citizens to recruit them for the war.

However, researchers who study the country closely told Business Insider that year that it’s unlikely a large mercenary ring could have operated in Cuba without the government’s knowledge.

The Cuban and Russian foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.

• Late-night hosts did not mince words when talking about Jimmy Kimmel’s show being suspended.
• Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon talked about the move on Thursday night.
• Disney suspended Kimmel’s show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely.

Four show hosts responded with satire and defiance after the suspension of one of their own, Jimmy Kimmel.

On Thursday night, it was the who’s who of late-night comedy: Stephen Colbert, whose own show was not renewed; NBC’s Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, who have both received threats from President Donald Trump; and “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart, who has consistently defended his colleagues.

Kimmel’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was suspended indefinitely by Disney on Wednesday under pressure from Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and a prominent company that owns ABC affiliate stations, Nexstar.

Nexstar and another ABC affiliate owner, Sinclair, pulled Kimmel’s show off the air “indefinitely.” Sinclair said the suspension would remain “until formal discussions are held with ABC about the network’s commitment to professionalism and accountability.”

The suspension came after Kimmel made comments about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and mocked Trump’s response to the incident. Kimmel’s suspension and the political uproar that followed have raised questions over speech freedom and the First Amendment.

Sinclair also called for Kimmel to apologize to Kirk’s family.

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert, whose namesake late-night show is set to be pulled off the air in May, defended Kimmel during his opening monologue on Thursday night.

He started the show saying, “Tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel,” calling the suspension “blatant censorship.”

“The Late Show” posted a clip of Colbert’s comments on Kimmel on its Instagram account. The post was captioned, “The Late Show stands with Jimmy Kimmel and his staff.”

In his monologue, Colbert referenced a report from Rolling Stone on Wednesday about Kimmel and ABC.

“As one source at ABC put it, they were pissing themselves all day. On the bright side, that proves Disney is No. 1 at streaming,” Colbert said.

Colbert then cited an X post that the FCC’s Carr wrote on Wednesday. Carr said it was important for broadcasters to oppose “programming that they determine falls short of community values.”

“Well, you know what my community values are, buster? Freedom of speech,” Colbert said on Thursday, to loud cheers from the audience.

“People across the country are shocked by this blatant assault on the freedom of speech,” he added.

Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Fallon, the host of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” said in a Thursday episode that he hoped Kimmel’s show would make a comeback.

He started off the segment with a joke: “Well, guys, the big story is that Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC after pressure from the FCC, leaving everyone thinking ‘WTF.'”

Joking about how he and Kimmel share the same first name, Fallon said he woke up to 100 text messages from his father expressing sorrow that his show was canceled.

But then he adopted a somber tone, saying, “But to be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on, and no one does.”

“But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he’s a decent, funny, and loving guy. I hope he comes back,” he said, to loud cheers and applause from the audience.

Jon Stewart

In a Thursday episode of “The Daily Show,” host Jon Stewart adopted a sarcastic and satirical tone while discussing Kimmel’s suspension.

While Stewart typically hosts the show on Mondays, the show announced on Thursday that he would host another episode that night.

“I don’t know who this Johnny Drimmel Live ABC character is. But the point is, our great administration has laid out very clear rules on free speech,” Stewart said in his opening monologue.

He did not directly defend Kimmel in the segment, but he made a series of pointed remarks about Trump, at one point calling the president our “dear leader.”

“We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show,” he said, and pretended to quiet the audience when they laughed.

Seth Meyers

In a Thursday night episode of his series “A Closer Look,” host Seth Meyers said Kimmel’s suspension has become a “big moment in our democracy.”

Joking about the Trump administration’s crackdown on free speech, Meyers said, “Completely unrelated, I just wanna say before we get started here, that I’ve always admired and respected Mr Trump.”

He added that if the audience had ever seen him say anything negative about Trump, it was likely an AI-generated deepfake video.

He got serious later in the segment when he brought up Kimmel again.

“And may I just say, it is a privilege and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend, in the same way that it’s a privilege and honor to do this show every night,” he said.

“This is a big moment in our democracy, and we must all stand up for the principles of free expression,” he said at the end of the segment. “There’s a reason free speech is in the very first amendment; it stands above all others.”