The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, received yesterday the Minister of the Russian Federation for Civil Protection, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters, Lieutenant General Alexander Viacheslavovich Kurenkov.
The president thanked the permanent contribution of his country to the largest of the Antilles in emergency situations. We see "always, Russia's hand of solidarity supporting Cuba," he said.
He praised the support of the Eurasian nation in the training of Cuban specialists in the areas of firefighting, rescue and other disciplines at the Cuban-Russian Regional Training, Rescue and Firefighting Center.
He thanked the sister nation for its donations in exceptional moments in recent years, such as the fire at the oil storage facility at Matanzas and extreme weather events.
Díaz-Canel conveyed "an affectionate greeting to President Putin, who -he said- has maintained a commitment, a sensitivity towards Cuba's problems, and is a pillar of the historic relations".
The Head of State congratulated Minister Kurenkov, whom he described as "a good friend of Cuba", for the awarding of the Friendship Medal, and described his visit as very important in the current situation, as a result of the impact of the accumulated effects of a tightened blockade implemented by President Trump and maintained by the Biden administration; The energy emergency, due, on the one hand, to the unavailability of the necessary finances to provide the required maintenance and repairs to the thermoelectric power plants and distributed generation plants, and on the other hand, the lack of sufficient fuel to operate them.
In addition, the visit takes place after two recent hurricanes and two strong earthquakes in eastern Cuba.
Díaz-Canel explained to Lieutenant General Alexander Viacheslavovich Kurenkov that Cuba has plans for dealing with disasters - which will be updated on the basis of the latest experiences - but that his visit in this context will make it possible to optimize the preparation of our personnel for emergency situations and the elimination of their consequences.
The President thanked the Russian Federation for its permanent support to Cuba in its struggle against the blockade and the approval of the Resolution presented at the UN for its elimination, and highlighted the speech made by Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov in the high-level segment of the UN General Assembly, in which he made, he emphasized, a forceful denunciation of what the blockade means for the Cuban people.
He said that bilateral relations are currently at a high level, with a political and diplomatic agreement; with consensus reached between him and President Putin; with a definition of the participation of the Russian side in the Cuban Social Economic Development Plan until 2030, and with systematic inter-chancellery meetings.
Last week's session of the Russian-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission for Commercial, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, co-chaired by the Vice-President of the Government of the Russian Federation, Dmitri Chernyshenko, stood out.
Lieutenant General Alexander Viacheslavovich Kurenkov expressed his satisfaction with the meeting with Diaz-Canel, and that the latter had opened his agenda to receive him.
"I am very happy to be in Havana, fulfilling an invitation from the Minister of the Interior," Political Bureau member Major General Lázaro Alberto Alvarez Casas.
Kurenkov expressed his "willingness to continue strengthening our relations, which have a friendly and committed nature"; as well as to "continue exchanging in the areas of prevention and mitigation of natural disasters and training of specialists", in addition to cooperation on other issues.
Participating in the meeting on the Russian side were Roman V. Kurinin, deputy head of the Ministry for Civil Protection, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters; Anatolly Suprunovsky, deputy chief state fire inspector; Olrg Kuznetsov, director of the Department of International Activities; and Victor Koronelli, ambassador of the Russian Federation.
The Cuban side was represented by the Minister of the Interior and the deputy minister, Brigadier General Jesús Manuel Burón.
