Madrid/Four Cuban migrants who escaped in July from a prison in Rybinsk, in the Russian region of Yaroslavl, have been sentenced to another two years in prison each, while two others were expelled from Nizhny Novgorod for lacking residence and work documents. Both cases were announced this Tuesday by local media, amid the tightening of immigration controls on foreigners.
The Rybinsk Municipal Court handed down a sentence on October 27 against Frank Joel Ravelo Reina, Yoan Mayo Pérez, George Betancourt Revé and Pedro Jesús Madán Marrero, according to Russian newspaper YarNews reported. The four were serving sentences of between 9 and 11 and a half years in prison, imposed in 2025 for drug distribution in Moscow and its region. They were held in prison colony number 2 (IK-2), a strict regime establishment.
The four were serving sentences of between 9 and 11 and a half years in prison, imposed in 2025 for drug distribution in Moscow and its region.
On the night of July 9, according to the press office of the Yaroslavl courts, the prisoners escaped after agreeing among themselves and with an accomplice who was outside the establishment. Two were captured that same day by officials of the Yaroslavl penitentiary service and the other two the next day.
The defendants accepted the charges and the court handled the case using a simplified procedure. The sentence can still be appealed, while the case against the alleged external collaborator is processed separately.
In Nizhny Novgorod, meanwhile, the authorities expelled two other Cuban emigrants who did not have documents proving their right to temporarily reside and work in Russia. The measure was published by the Nizhegorodskaya Pravda newspaperbased on information from the Federal Marshal Service of the region.
The two migrants remained in a detention center for foreigners while their departure was being processed. Once the documentation was completed, the bailiffs escorted them to a border post, where they were placed in the custody of border control agents. None will be able to re-enter Russia for the next five years.
The two undocumented Cubans were taken to a border post. No one will be able to re-enter Russia for the next five years.
The authorities did not disclose their identities, how long they had been in Russian territory or whether they had requested to regularize their situation. They also did not specify the destination to which they were sent.
In Nizhny Novgorod, sheriffs have transferred 1,340 migrants of different nationalities to border posts during the first nine months of 2026, according to official figures collected by the Russian regional press. It has not been reported how many of them were Cubans.
Others seven Cuban migrants were deported in September 2025 from the Kaluga region, where they had been detained for illegally staying in the country. On that occasion, the Russian authorities returned them to Havana.
In April the raids against Cuban citizens without regularized immigration status in Moscow. The lack of direct flights with Havana has not prevented the expulsions, which are carried out through connections through Istanbul.
Hugo Alberto Formes Romero, a 20-year-old Cuban, was sentenced to eight years and six months from prison in Volgograd in February, for his participation in a drug sales operation after arriving in the country in September 2025.
