Rubio warns Cuba as US indicts former president Raul Castro

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Cuba on Thursday that Washington remains "very focused" on changing the island's communist system, hours after the United States indicted former President Raul Castro for his alleged role in the 1996 shooting down of two civilian planes carrying anti-Castro activists.

The criminal indictment and the simultaneous deployment of the USS Nimitz carrier strike group to the Caribbean signal a broad escalation of the Trump administration's pressure campaign against Havana — a strategy analysts compare to the tactics used against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Rubio, speaking to reporters in Miami, made clear that Havana should expect no relief from US pressure. "What they've gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out," he said, according to AFP. "They're not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We're very serious. We're very focused." The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort warships entered the Caribbean the same day, roughly 90 miles from the Cuban coast.

The indictment charges Castro with murder, conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft tied to the fatal 1996 incident, in which Cuban military jets downed two planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The Korea Times reported that alongside the legal action, the United States offered Cuba $100 million in economic aid contingent on political and economic reforms.

Rubio described Cuba as a "failed state" caught in deepening crisis. "Their economic system doesn't work," he said. "It's broken, and you can't fix it with the current political system that's in place." Cuba has endured power outages lasting up to 20 hours daily, a hardship that intensified after Venezuela halted its free oil shipments, wiping out nearly half the island's energy supply, according to AFP.

Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said the Castro indictment is primarily designed as political signaling. "The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolas Maduro," Sabatini said. He cautioned, however, that the island's ultimate stability remained uncertain: "The military would certainly defend Cuba. Whether the people would or not, it's difficult to say."

Ordinary Cubans in Havana expressed skepticism rather than fear. A 30-year-old accountant, Fabian Fernandez, told AFP the charges were politically motivated — an attack on a public figure rather than genuine justice for a decades-old act. Retiree Pedro Leal, 65, went further, calling the US approach — including what he called an energy blockade — "criminal." Both China and Russia condemned Washington's posture; Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun called on the US to "stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba," while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said such pressure methods "border on violence" and should not be used against any head of state, past or present.

Cuba's government called citizens to rally outside the US Embassy in Havana at 7:30 a.m. Friday. With Beijing and Moscow now publicly aligned against Washington's approach, the standoff over Cuba — just 90 miles from American shores — shows no sign of easing.