You can categorize any smaller country as a pawn when they’re placed between two competing powers, but they often really don’t have much of a choice in that.
And TBF Castro wanted to push the Cuban missile crisis a hell of a lot further then then Khrushchev was willing to. So maybe more pitbull than pawn, at least for a time.
But real talk, America has horribly exploited and abused Cuba since the Spanish-American war, and let’s just say, still lightly meddled in their affairs for nearly 50 years prior to the post war occupation.
So getting your feels up in a twist about Russia managing to sail a handful of warships to Cuba, is kinda petty. Especially considering that it’s even odds that the fucking engines catch fire on the return trip.