Cuba is under more US pressure than at any point this century. Its regime is dealing with the consequences of US military action against its ally, Venezuela, and a subsequent shut down in oil supplies.
Power cuts and food shortages have spread across the island, while garbage is piling up on the streets. Reports suggest Secretary of State Marco Rubio has engaged in talks with the grandson of dictator Raul Castro about future ties.
That would very likely be a problem for Russia, which has cultivated close ties to the regime since the 1959 Cuban revolution. Unlike Venezuela, where the costs of a change in regime policy were relatively low, the Havana regime offers some serious assistance to the Kremlin’s work for global illiberalism.
So what is at stake?
In an era marked by democratic erosion, authoritarian revival, and geopolitical fragmentation and conflicts, the relationship between Russia and Cuba offers a revealing case of what scholars increasingly describe as autocratic cooperation.
Far from a nostalgic remnant of the Cold War, the Havana–Moscow axis illustrates how contemporary authoritarian regimes adapt, learn from one another, and coordinate across regions to resist liberal norms and sustain their rule. As we argued in a recent book (Scaling Authoritarian Influence: Russia, Cuba, and the Dynamics of Autocratic Cooperation in Latin America), this partnership is less about ideology alone than about the strategic exchange of resources, narratives, and practices that reinforce authoritarian resilience at home and abroad.
At first glance, the asymmetry between Russia and Cuba is striking. Russia is a nuclear-armed great power with global ambitions, while Cuba is a small Caribbean island of 11 million people enduring chronic economic crisis. Yet, their cooperation is not built on parity but on complementarity.
Each brings to the relationship distinct assets: Russia contributes energy, military support, intelligence cooperation, and global diplomatic shielding; Cuba contributes decades of experience in authoritarian governance, dense regional networks in Latin America, and an ability to operate as a trusted interlocutor with leftist and “progressive” movements across the so-called Global South.
This partnership can be best understood through the lens of autocratic cooperation: a deliberate, often asymmetric coordination among authoritarian regimes aimed at countering democratic pressures and promoting illiberal alternatives. Unlike classic alliance politics, this cooperation does not require ideological uniformity or formal treaties. Instead, it thrives on shared interests in regime survival, sovereignty without accountability, and resistance to Western-led norms of democracy and human rights.
Cuba exemplifies what Marianne Kneuer and Thomas Demmelhuber term Authoritarian Gravity Centers in their 2020 book of that name. For more than six decades, Havana has cultivated revolutionary legitimacy, a vast diplomatic apparatus disproportionate to its size, and networks of political, cultural, and professional exchange that bind sympathetic elites to the Cuban model. Through medical missions, educational programs, party-to-party ties, and activism in multilateral forums, Cuba exports not prosperity but know-how: techniques of social control, narratives of anti-imperialism, and strategies to hollow out democratic institutions while preserving a façade of legality.
Russia, by contrast, operates as both a regional gravity center in its post-Soviet neighborhood and, increasingly, as an “Authoritarian Global Promoter.” Under Vladimir Putin’s rule, Moscow has refined a repertoire including disinformation campaigns, elite capture, security assistance, and the use of energy and arms sales as political leverage. In Latin America, Russia’s reach is limited compared to that of the United States or China, but it is targeted and opportunistic — often working through media outlets, diplomatic coordination, and security cooperation with regimes already leaning toward authoritarianism.
The interaction between Russia and Cuba thus creates a mutually reinforcing cycle. Cuba helps Russia navigate Latin American political cultures, providing access to regional forums, sympathetic governments, and ideological allies. Russia, in turn, offers Cuba economic lifelines, strategic backing in international institutions, and symbolic validation as part of a broader anti-Western front. Their cooperation is visible in synchronized voting patterns at the United Nations, shared narratives condemning sanctions as “imperialist aggression,” and mutual support for embattled allies such as Venezuela and Nicaragua and for Russia’s war against Ukraine, where the US has estimated 1,000-5,000 men have joined the Kremlin’s forces.
Crucially, this relationship is not about exporting a single authoritarian blueprint. Rather, it is about normalizing authoritarian practices in a plural ideological environment. Russia’s conservative nationalism and Cuba’s revolutionary socialism differ sharply, yet both converge on core principles: rejection of liberal pluralism, hostility toward independent civil society, and the instrumental use of elections, law, and sovereignty discourse to entrench power. This ideological flexibility makes autocratic cooperation harder to detect and counter, as it adapts to local contexts and grievances.
The broader implication is sobering. Autocratic cooperation between Russia and Cuba demonstrates that authoritarian regimes are not merely reacting defensively to democratic pressure; they are actively shaping alternative international norms. By leveraging multilateral institutions, regional organizations, and transnational networks, they seek to erode the moral and institutional foundations of the liberal order from within. Latin America, with its history of inequality, institutional weakness, and ambivalent relationship with the United States, has proven particularly susceptible to these strategies.
Yet understanding these dynamics also points toward avenues for response. The very need for Russia and Cuba to invest so heavily in narratives, networks, and symbolic politics suggests that authoritarian appeal is neither automatic nor inevitable. Democratic nations — governments, civil society, and international organizations — can counter autocratic cooperation by strengthening institutional transparency, supporting independent media, and addressing the social and economic grievances that authoritarian narratives exploit.
The Russia–Cuba relationship, then, is not an anachronism but a warning. It shows how authoritarian regimes learn, cooperate, and adapt in a contested global order.
Ignoring these ties as marginal or purely rhetorical risks underestimating their cumulative impact. Taking them seriously is a necessary step in defending democratic norms in an increasingly illiberal and, in some cases, deeply anti-liberal world.
Armando Chaguaceda is a political Scientist and historian. He is currently Karl Loewenstein Fellow and Visiting Professor of Political Science at Amherst Collegeand Researcher in Government and Political Analysis AC (GAPAC), a think tank based in Mexico. He has specialized in the study of democratization and autocratization processes as well as the state-civil society relationship in Latin America and Russia.
Cesar E. Santos is a philosophy graduate and master in Social Sciences. He is a researcher at Government and Political Analysis AC (GAPAC), specializing in theory and praxis of illiberalism and Russia’s and China’s authoritarian influence in Latin America.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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