The certification of firefighting engineers includes training to operate drones in emergency situations
14ymedio, Havana, 1 July 2024 — Relations between Russia and Cuba seem to return more and more to the old years of the Soviet Union, with the training of professionals from the Island in the Eurasian country. This Saturday, it was announced that a group of Cubans have just graduated as fire protection engineers.
According to Prensa Latina, the qualification includes a certification to operate drones in emergency situations. In the same vein is the announcement made by the Cuban Minister of Justice, Oscar Manuel Silvera Martínez, who last week was on an official visit to Moscow and said that Cuban police and lawyers will be trained in Russian universities.
The training of lawyers and police, the minister said, after participating in the XII International Legal Forum that took place in St. Petersburg between June 26 and 28, is part of the memorandum of understanding signed last year between the two countries. It aims to promote the development of cooperation in the field of education.
“Our Cubans will be trained in police work by you,” the minister said during his visit to Russia last week
“Police and lawyers from Cuba will be trained in Russia. This is very important to strengthen the relationships between us,” Silvera Martínez stressed, without providing more details. “Our Cubans will be trained in police work by you, and they will also learn about jurisprudence in your universities.”
The Academy of State Firefighters Service, which belongs to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, was, for five years, the institution in charge of training the 18 young Cubans who graduated as firefighters this weekend. Among the subjects taught were “theory, practice and application of experiments both in laboratories and in on-site exercises.”
Most notable among what was instilled by the Government of Vladimir Putin in this group of Cubans is the “determination, loyalty to duty and the willingness to help,” explained the director of the State Firefighters Academy, Vyacheslav Butko, who reiterated in allusion to the Cuban students that “the doors of the university will be open.”
In addition to graduating as firefighters and drone pilots for work in emergency situations, Cubans received a Russian-Spanish dictionary of words related to their specialty, as reported to the Cuban news agency by Arnaldo Bombino, who recently graduated as a lieutenant.
Cooperation between Cuba and Russia on the matter of firefighting has been a constant in recent years. For example, the Russians gave advice to the regime in the case of the Matanzas supertanker fire in August 2022, and donated fire trucks a few months later (in December 2023) .
Since Russia invaded Ukraine and was rejected by most of the international community, the old relationship between Moscow and Havana has been revitalized. This has included a series of exchanges, including the sending of oil tankers to the Island in the midst of an energy crisis aggravated by the summer, as well as the visit of a naval flotilla headed by a Russian nuclear submarine this month.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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