Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said today that his country is “ready” to face a U.S. military attack and reaffirmed the “socialist” nature of the Cuban state, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

“The moment is extremely difficult and requires us to be ready to confront serious threats, including military aggression,” the Cuban head of state said.

“We do not want it, but it is our duty to be prepared to prevent it and, if it is unavoidable, to win,” Díaz-Canel continued, in a speech delivered before thousands gathered in central Havana to mark the failed 1961 invasion.

That year, between April 15 and 19, 1,400 anti-Castro fighters, trained and funded by the CIA, attempted to land at the Bay of Pigs, 250 kilometers from the capital, but failed to overthrow Fidel Castro’s communist regime.

Washington, which has opposed the communist leadership on the island since it was established in 1959, intensified its economic pressure in January by blocking all hydrocarbon supplies, immediately after overturning its main ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

“A false and highly cynical narrative has been constructed: that of Cuba as a bankrupt state (…). Cuba is not a bankrupt state; it is a country under siege,” the Cuban leader added. “We remain a socialist revolution right under the nose of the empire,” he said, referring to the United States.

“I think these are two different moments,” 1961 and today, “but what is similar is that the people are ready to defend their sovereignty, whatever the cost,” Maria Regueiro, an 82-year-old woman among the crowd, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).