‘The Cuban Quintet’ (+1) is warmly greeted in Moscow

By Progreso Weekly On May 12, 2016

The five Cuban intelligence officers who spent many years in U.S. prisons after their arrest in South Florida in 1998 — Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, René González and Antonio Guerrero — were in Moscow this week to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations.

They were accompanied by another Cuban hero, Lieut. Col. Orlando Cardoso Villavicencio, who spent almost 11 years in a Somali prison, for his international duty in the war in Ethiopia.

The six Cubans were interviewed Wednesday on the Russian news network RT (Russia Today). A video of that interview, in Spanish, can be accessed here or here.

At the Duma, Deputy Speaker Ivan Melnikov embraces Ramón Labañino.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov shakes hands with René González. At left is Fernando González.

Cuban guests at RT studio are, from left, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, René González, Antonio Guerrero and Orlando Cardoso.

Earlier in the week, the former agents, who have become Cuba’s good-will ambassadors overseas, were welcomed to the Foreign Ministry by Minister Sergei Lavrov and to the Russian Duma (House of Representatives) by its deputy speaker, Ivan Melnikov.

Melnikov, who greeted the Cubans warmly, was in Cuba last May to attend the May Day parade in Havana.

For more on the Cubans’ meeting with Lavrov, click here and here.

For this visit, the Russian media — which gave them extensive coverage — identified them as “the Cuban Quintet.” Background on their release, in Progreso Weekly, can be accessed here.

[Photo at top: At the Duma are, from left, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Gerardo Hernández and Fernando González. Behind them is Orlando Cardoso.]