Speaking to Radio Sputnik, the Senate leader emphasized that most of the economic and social hardships that Cuba and its people are going through are associated with more than 60 years of the US blockade.

He denounced that these are the main causes of the demonstrations on July 11, which are being further encouraged ‘to convey to people the feeling that there is nothing to negotiate with the authorities’, he said.

He indicated that such a situation should be avoided by all means now, and expressed his hope that Cuban authorities will respond appropriately. ‘They are within their rights, it is their direct responsibility’, he said.

Kosachev pointed out that Russia will support Cuba as it does with any other sovereign state rejecting external interference in internal affairs, especially when this intervention has been prepared over the years and decades and the ground has been moulded to create discontent in the country.

‘This is unacceptable for Cuba, for Venezuela, for Nicaragua, for Syria. The scenario is the same everywhere: first the blockade and the maximum discredit of the authorities, and then the provocation of an armed uprising called color revolution,’ he expressed.

The senator explained that situations like those of Cuba can occur in all those countries subject to external sanctions, where their own development is restricted from the outside and are meant to suffocate.

pgh/lcp