Havana, July 24 (TIWN) The Cuban government has denounced the latest sanctions imposed against the island nation by the US administration.

"I refute the unfounded and slanderous U.S. government sanctions against Army Corp General Alvaro Lopez Miera and the National Special Brigade," Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez posted on Twitter.  "I denounce that the State Dept. is exercising offensive and humiliating pressures on European countries, particularly 6 from Eastern Europe, and 8 from Latin America, to force them to support a declaration condemning Cuba," he added.  Earlier in the day, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against Miera and an elite military unit popularly known as the "black wasps" for their participation in the "rebuke" of protests this month in Cuba.  The new sanctions come amid the worst outbreak of COVID-19 Cuba has seen to date, with a rise in infections, deaths and hospitalizations.