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Russia and China both pledged their support for Cuba on Thursday and condemned what they call an aggressive US pressure campaign on the Cuban government.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, China and Russia have a common interest in Cuba, with both countries running electronic eavesdropping operations just 90-plus miles off the Florida coast, and these days China is the bigger player. The US has publicly identified at least 12 signals intelligence facilities tied to China across four main spots: Bejucal, Wajay, Calabazar, and El Salao near Santiago de Cuba. The El Salao site, under construction since 2021, is shaping up to be a massive circularly disposed antenna array roughly 130 to 200 meters wide and reportedly big enough to track signals up to 8,000 nautical miles out. What they’re after is communications, and Cuba’s location gives China a front-row seat to peer into the US and intercept sensitive military, commercial, and government chatter, especially with the heavy cluster of American installations in Florida and Georgia. Since 2023, China and Russia have nearly tripled their intelligence personnel on the island, and analysts have testified to Congress that the Chinese have flat-out supplanted the Russians, occupying some of the same former Russian sites. Beijing denies all of it, calling its cooperation with Cuba “legitimate, transparent, and in accordance with international law.”

What’s going on now: Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia would “continue to provide the most active support to the fraternal Cuban people during this extremely difficult period,” adding that the Cuban government had already been briefed on the specifics of that support. She criticized Trump for attempting “to tighten the sanctions noose around Cuba” and said it was “absurd” to suggest that Cuba was preparing to attack the US. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov went further, saying the pressure on Havana “borders on violence.”

China echoed the sentiment, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun saying that Beijing “firmly supports Cuba” and urging Trump to “cease using sanctions and judicial apparatus as tools of coercion against Cuba and refrain from making threats of force at every turn.”

The shows of solidarity came shortly after federal prosecutors charged Castro and five others over the 1996 downing of two civilian planes flown by the Miami-based Cuban exile group. It also followed repeated statements from Trump that the US will “take over” Cuba once he finishes up the conflict in Iran.