In recent days, the U.S. Navy stationed an aircraft carrier off the coast of Cuba, the White House expanded sanctions on Havana’s leaders and federal prosecutors charged former Cuban President Raúl Castro with murder.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters, said what to many is becoming obvious: that the likelihood of a “negotiated and peaceful agreement” with Cuba’s communist government is “not high.”

Months into a punishing oil blockade that has triggered widespread blackouts on the island, the Trump administration has ratcheted up its pressure campaign against Havana even further, raising questions about whether Cuba will be the next U.S. target after Venezuela and Iran. The U.S. overthrew Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and a month later killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Read more:As U.S. threatens, Cubans look ahead, with hope and trepidation

Officials in Cuba, who slammed the indictment against Castro as “a political action” to build the case for an invasion, say they are preparing for war.

Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, said that while the country hopes to avert conflict, it is hardening its defenses.

“We would be naive” not to, he said.

For weeks, Cuba has been circulating a pamphlet among its citizens — a “Family Guide for Protection Against Military Aggression” — that says the U.S. “threatens to launch a military assault and destroy our society with the aim of perpetuating capitalism ... and annihilating the dream of our Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro.”

The document instructs families to pack survival kits, seek shelter if they hear air raid sirens and shares first aid instructions for things such as tying a tourniquet. “Should the enemy attack,” it reads, “our Revolution will defend itself until victory is achieved and the aggressor is expelled.”

Cubans are watching the developments anxiously, but are focused on the daily business of survival.

An April shipment of crude — one of the only oil deliveries this year — has been exhausted, with Cuba’s minister of energy and mines announcing this week that the country lacks fuel to power its antiquated electrical grid and is relying on domestic oil and solar panels. “We have no more reserves,” he said.

Read more:Cuba's collapse: From Obama's historic opening to Trump's crippling embargo

The energy crisis has plunged much of the country into darkness, with many homes receiving just a few hours of electricity each day. Food is scarce or goes rotten because of a lack of refrigeration. Some schools are closed. Cars and buses are idled. Hospitals lack power for ventilators.

“Cuba is spiraling,” said Michel Fernández Pérez of the Florida-based nongovernmental organization Cuba Próxima. “It is a country on the brink of terminal crisis. People don’t know what’s going to happen next, and most have almost no hope that things will actually improve.”

The U.S. and Cuba have been involved in talks for months, with American officials demanding an overhaul of the island’s state-run economy and one-party political system. Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for talks.

But Cuba’s leaders appear unwilling to make major concessions. And they have said publicly that they do not believe the U.S. is acting in good faith.

“Obviously it does not help a climate of dialogue and trust that every other day there are statements like, ‘We are ready to take over Cuba,’” Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations told the New York Times this week. “Warmongering rhetoric does not help.”

The indictment of Castro, the 94-year-old brother of the late revolutionary leader Fidel, is perhaps the most aggressive move yet from the United States.

Castro, who served as defense minister in the 1990s, was charged with ordering the 1996 downing of two planes over Cuban territory flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a group of Florida exiles opposed to the Castro regime. Four people died. Public records show that Cuban officials have said that they attacked the planes only after trying via diplomatic back channels to stop the flights.

Read more:How Cuba is struggling under the U.S. oil blockade

Announcing the charges in Miami on Wednesday, acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche hailed the case as an important step toward justice, and said he believed Castro would eventually end up in the U.S. for his day in court. “There was a warrant issued for his arrest,” he said. “So we expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way.”

But what “another way” means remains unclear, and Blanche said that was an issue for the departments of Defense and State.

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, a progressive think tank, said President Trump appears to be on a warpath.

“Once again he’s leading us into a conflict for no good reason,” Duss said, and in a nod to the operations in Venezuela and Iran, added that U.S. officials “have offered no plausible argument that Cuba or any of the three countries represent a threat.”

In March, Trump had said that he would have “the honor of taking Cuba,” adding, “I can do anything I want with it.” On Thursday, he denied that his administration was seeking to intimidate Havana when asked about positioning the USS Nimitz near Cuba.

“Not at all,” Trump told reporters during an event in the Oval Office.

He then characterized Cuba as a “failed country,” and said that for “humanitarian reasons” his administration was looking to “help them along.”

“Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years, doing something,” he said. “And it looks like I will be the one that does it.”

A recent poll by El Toque, a Cuban news site, found that 56% of the island’s residents support a U.S. military intervention.

“That is the level of desperation currently gripping the Cuban people,” said Fernández, who compared everyday Cubans to “hostages trapped between two powers: the illegitimate and dictatorial authority of the Cuban government, and the United States — a global power seeking to impose its will without regard for human rights.”

Read more:Cruise lines can be held liable for using docks seized under Castro, Supreme Court rules

Also on Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld lawsuits by U.S. companies whose property was seized during the Cuban revolution. The suits do not seek compensation from Cuba, but create another headache for the government by putting pressure on four cruise lines being sued because they had used the Port of Havana.

In Cuba, anger has been growing at the government over the blackouts and decades of mismanagement of the economy. But sporadic protests have been quickly suppressed.

The government, in a show of force, is organizing a large protest to defend Castro on Havana’s seaside promenade on Friday.

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report from Washington.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

HAVANA (AP) — Former President Raúl Castro was last seen surrounded by tens of thousands of people attending a state-organized rally for International Workers' Day along Havana’s famed seawall.

The 94-year-old stood tall and unwavering under a warming sun, even as some people nearby fainted before the May 1 event began. Standing behind him was his security detail, led by grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro.

It was a rare public appearance for the last Castro from the revolutionary era. While he is believed to wield significant influence over the government, he maintains a low profile even as a general of Cuba’s army.

He was in the spotlight Wednesday when U.S. prosecutors unveiled an indictment that accuses Castro of ordering the 1996 shootdown of civilian planes flown by Miami-based exiles. The charges include murder and destruction of an airplane. Castro was minister of defense at the time.

The indictment and remarks Thursday by U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio renewed fears of a possible U.S. military intervention in Cuba, much like what happened in Venezuela in early January.

“We expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way,” acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in announcing the charges against the former Cuban president during a press conference in Miami.

Cuba’s socialist government condemned the charges and held a rally Friday to honor Castro.

Thousands of people crowded into Havana’s famed seawall to demonstrate their support for him and decry the indictment against him. Raúl Castro did not attend, but present were his grandson and his daughter, Mariela Castro.

“Who do they think they are to judge Raúl?” Gerardo Hernández asked as the crowd that had gathered in front of the U.S. embassy cheered. Hernández is one of five Cubans accused of being a spy who was imprisoned and later released by the U.S. in 2014.

“For the United States, the law is a tailor-made suit,” he said before punching the air with this fist to a shout of “Viva Raúl!”

The crowd responded to his call: “Homeland or death, we will vanquish!”

Castro is rarely seen in public

In July 1953, Castro was arrested in Cuba after being accused of armed rebellion following a failed assault against military barracks. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison but was released two years later following a political amnesty. He then left for Mexico and helped organize the revolution.

He married a guerrilla fighter, Vilma Espín, in the 1960s and the couple had four children. Little else is known about Castro's private life: He is considered a family man and officially resides west of Havana.

Even during his years as defense minister under his late brother, Fidel Castro, and later as president, his routine stood out for its discretion: no agendas, official ceremonies, or public or family gatherings.

Since stepping down and handing over to President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro has rarely been seen in public. He wears his signature olive-green military uniform when greeting visiting dignitaries.

“He still has influence, and the leadership seeks his opinion on major decisions, but he is not running the government on a day-to-day basis,” said William LeoGrande, a political scientist at American University in Washington.

“If the U.S. were to abduct him, it would not change the operations of government, unlike what happened in Venezuela,” LeoGrande said.

Tensions between the US and Cuba worsen

The indictment against Raúl Castro has deepened tensions between the U.S. and Cuba, which recently announced that its oil reserves had run dry because of an ongoing U.S. energy blockade.

The island’s crises have worsened since the Jan. 3 U.S. invasion of Venezuela, which halted critical oil shipments from the South American country. Then in late January, Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba.

Top Trump aides — including Rubio, CIA chief John Ratcliffe and other senior national security officials — have met with Cuban officials in recent months to explore improving relations. But the U.S. side has come away unimpressed from those talks, leading to more sanctions imposed on the Cuban government in the past week.

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Associated Press reporter Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

The US could capture Raúl Castro as it did Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, the acting attorney general appeared to suggest.

Mr Castro, 94, the former president of Cuba, has been indicted on murder charges over the shooting down of two planes operated by a US-based Cuban exile group in 1996, the US department of justice said.

Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, said Mr Castro and five co-defendants also faced charges of destruction of an aircraft and conspiracy to kill US nationals.

At a press conference announcing the charges, Mr Blanche was asked about the prospects of getting Mr Castro to the US to face justice. He said this was not a “show indictment”, adding that US officials expected him to “show up here by his own will or by another way”.

In January, US forces captured then-Venezuelan leader Mr Maduro and his wife in a night-time raid in Caracas. They were flown to the US, where they are awaiting trial on drug-trafficking charges.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Freedom Tower in Miami, which housed Cubans fleeing the island for Florida following the Cuban revolution in 1959, Mr Blanche received a standing ovation after announcing the charges against Mr Castro.

He said: “For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in this country, in the United States of America, for acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens.

“President Trump is committed to restoring a very simple but important principle: if you kill Americans, we will pursue you, no matter who you are, no matter what title you hold, and in this case, no matter how much time has passed.”

The Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue ran search and rescue flights in the 1990s as Cubans tried to leave the island on rafts. Two of the group’s Cessna aircraft were shot down in 1996, killing three Americans and a permanent US resident.

Mr Blanche said: “They were unarmed civilians and were flying humanitarian missions for the rescue and protection of people fleeing oppression across the Florida Straits. My message today is clear: the United States and President Trump does not, and will not, forget its citizens.”

Mr Castro, the brother of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, was Cuba’s defence minister at the time of the 1996 killings. He is understood to still hold considerable power in the country.

Cuban leaders have claimed the planes violated Cuban airspace. They accused Brothers to the Rescue of “illegal and provocative activities”, including dropping “flyers containing enemy propaganda”, according to a 1996 UN report.

Tensions between the US and Cuba have escalated in recent months, as Donald Trump has discussed a possible “friendly takeover” of the island. Cuba depended on Venezuela for much of its oil supplies, which have been cut off since the capture of Mr Maduro.

Mr Trump has threatened military action in Cuba since January’s military operation in Venezuela. A US blockade has led to severe blackouts, food shortages and an economic collapse across the island.

Since Mr Maduro’s capture, the US president has also ratcheted up talk of regime change in Cuba as negotiations between the two countries have continued.

In February, Axios reported that Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, had secretly met Mr Castro’s 41-year-old grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro – known as Raúlito.

On Wednesday, Mr Rubio urged the Cuban people to demand a free-market economy with new leadership that he said will chart a new course in relations with the US.

Mr Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, said in a Spanish-language video message: “In the US, we are ready to open a new chapter in the relationship between our people. Currently, the only thing standing in the way of a better future are those who control your country.”

Carlos Fernández de Cossío Domínguez, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, criticised the US secretary of state on X, saying he “lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously about Cuba and tries to justify the aggression he inflicts on the Cuban people”.

He claimed Mr Rubio “knows full well that there is no excuse for such cruel and ruthless aggression”.

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In what appears to be a carefully calibrated show of force, the U.S deployed the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its accompanying strike group into Caribbean waters this week, a move that coincided with the unsealing of murder charges against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro on Wednesday and an intensifying pressure campaign by the Trump administration against Havana.

The Doral-based U.S. Southern Command confirmed Wednesday that the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group had entered the region, describing the deployment as a demonstration of American “readiness and presence, unmatched reach and lethality, and strategic advantage.

“Welcome to the Caribbean, Nimitz Carrier Strike Group!” the command posted on social media.

The strike group is centered around the nuclear-powered Nimitz and includes Carrier Air Wing 17, the guided-missile destroyer USS Gridley and the replenishment oiler USNS Patuxent. Its air wing includes F/A-18 Super Hornets, EA-18G Growlers, E-2D Hawkeyes and MH-60 Seahawk helicopters.

The deployment came the same day the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment charging Castro and several other officials with murder and conspiracy in connection with the 1996 shoot-down of two civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue.

The attack, which occurred over international waters, killed four men, including three U.S. citizens.

During remarks to reporters Wednesday, President Donald Trump linked the indictment to his administration’s broader focus on Cuba.

“Cuba is on our mind,” Trump said. “It’s very important. It was a very big moment for people, not only Cuban Americans, but people who came from Cuba, that want to go back to Cuba, see their family in Cuba.”

Asked at the White House whether the deployment of the USS Nimitz to the Caribbean is intended to intimidate Havana, Trump dismissed the suggestion, saying the United States was focused instead on helping a country he described as being in deep collapse.

“No, not at all,” Trump said. “Look, it’s a failed country, everybody knows it. They don’t have electricity, they don’t have money, they don’t really have anything, they don’t have food. And we’re going to help them along.”

Trump said humanitarian concerns and the interests of the Cuban-American community were driving the administration’s approach toward the island. He praised Cuban-Americans in Miami and across Florida as “great Americans” who have long wanted the opportunity to return to Cuba and help rebuild the country.

“That’s a great group of people, amazing group of people, industrious people,” Trump said. “They want to go back, they want to invest in their country and see if they can bring it back. Other presidents have looked at this for 50 or 60 years doing something, and it looks like I’ll be the one that does it.”

The arrival of the Nimitz has fueled speculation that Washington may be preparing additional measures against Havana, particularly after the January military operation in Caracas that led to the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who were transferred to the United States to face narcoterrorism charges they deny. The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford played a major role in that operation.

The deployment also comes as the Trump administration quietly pursues negotiations with Havana aimed at securing concessions on political prisoners, migration and economic reforms while simultaneously tightening sanctions and increasing military pressure.

U.S. officials and people familiar with the discussions say Washington has sought to leverage Cuba’s worsening economic crisis — marked by fuel shortages, rolling blackouts and growing social unrest — to extract broader concessions from the island’s communist leadership.

Those efforts intensified in recent weeks after CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for talks with senior Cuban officials, a rare high-level contact between the two governments despite increasingly confrontational rhetoric from Washington. According to people familiar with the discussions, the talks have centered on possible prisoner releases, limited economic openings and security guarantees aimed at avoiding direct military confrontation.

Analysts say the Trump administration appears to be applying a strategy similar to the one used earlier this year against Venezuela’s post-Maduro leadership: combining sanctions, legal pressure, diplomatic contacts and visible military deployments to negotiate from a position of overwhelming leverage. Cuban officials have publicly denounced the approach as coercive while privately signaling interest in easing tensions as the island’s economic crisis deepens.

Havana condemned the indictment against Castro as a “despicable accusation” and accused Washington of using the charges as a pretext for possible military action.

U.S. officials cited by American news outlets said the administration plans to keep the strike group in the Caribbean for several days primarily as a “show of force,” with no immediate combat operation planned. Still, reports that the Pentagon has developed contingency options for possible military action against Cuba have heightened tensions across the region.

Before entering the Caribbean, the Nimitz had been operating off South America as part of Southern Seas 2026, a preplanned deployment involving joint exercises with regional allies including Brazil. The carrier entered the Southern Command’s area of responsibility while sailing from its longtime home port in Washington state toward Norfolk, Virginia, where it is expected to complete its final years of service before decommissioning in 2027.

Despite being more than five decades old, the Nimitz remains one of the Navy’s most powerful ships and is now the longest-serving aircraft carrier in U.S. history.