Over just nine days this month, Cuban state media announced the deaths of five generals, sparking a wave of discussion and rampant speculation among analysts and exiles.

       The senior military leaders all appear to have died between July 17 and 26. Some were serving and others retired, but all had lauded military careers. The youngest was 58. Most were in their 70s or 80s. It is not clear what caused the deaths, and there is no indication they were related.

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       The deaths of several generals in a short space of time come as the revolutionary vanguard that has led the communist country for six decades hands over power to a new generation.

       William LeoGrande, a Cuba expert at American University, said that the deaths in Cuba reminded him of the Soviet Union in the period when senior figures such as Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko died — though those deaths were spread across three years, not nine days.

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       LeoGrande said the deaths in Cuba may not have much practical impact on the government, given the advanced age of most of the generals, but it was “a stark reminder that the ‘historic’ generation of leaders that made the revolution and founded the revolutionary regime is quickly passing from the scene.”

       The deaths also come amid a surge in coronavirus cases and just weeks after some of the largest protests in Cuba in decades rocked the country’s old guard and challenged the authority of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the first member of the younger generation to lead modern Cuba.

       Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) took note of the deaths on Monday, tweeting that Cuban military leaders had been having “incredibly bad luck lately.” The following afternoon he shared a photograph of the five dead leaders, with the caption “very strange.”

       The first death announced by Cuban media was that of Agustín Pe？a Pórrez, whose July 17 passing was featured on the website of Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba’s Communist Party. Díaz-Canel tweeted that the news was “painful and sad.”

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       At 58, Pe？a Pórrez was the youngest of the military figures to die and he was still serving at the time of his death. He held the rank of major general and had the five provinces that make up the eastern part of Cuba, from Camagüey to Guantánamo, under his command.

       The death of Marcelo Verdecia Perdomo in Cienfuegos was reported July 20. Accounts in the Cuban press suggested that he was either 79 or 80. He held the title of reserve brigadier general at the time of his death.

       Verdecia Perdomo joined the Cuban rebel army when he was a teenager and later worked as a bodyguard for revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

       Ruben Martinez Puente, 79, died on July 24, according the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. A former leader of the Cuban military air force, Martinez Puente was indicted in the United States after the shooting down of two civilian planes in 1996 over the Straits of Florida.

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       The planes were in use by the group Brothers to the Rescue to search for migrants trying to flee Cuba in international waters when they were shot down by two Cuban MiGs on Feb. 24, 1996. Martinez Puente never formally faced trial in the United States. He was retired when he died, according to the statement announcing his death.

       The deaths of two more generals, Eduardo Lastres Pacheco and Armando Choy Rodriguez, were also announced. Lastres Pacheco, a major general reserve whose age was not given in media reports, was another member of the old guard and had at one point served under iconic revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

       The death of Choy Rodriguez, a retired brigadier general, was announced on Tuesday by the Facebook account of Central University “Marta Abreu” of Las Villas, which said he had died the night before. Choy Rodriguez, 87, was a founding member of the revolutionary 26th of July Movement that Fidel Castro led during the revolution.

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       None of the announcements included details of the cause of death. Cuba remains in the midst of a covid-19 spike, with a record 8,853 new cases announced Sunday. As of Tuesday, 2,492 people are recorded to have died after contracting the coronavirus.

       At 58, Díaz-Canel is of a younger generation than many of the generals. He became Cuban head of state in 2018 after nearly six decades of Castro rule and this year succeeded Raúl Castro, the brother of Fidel, as first secretary of the Communist Party.

       Some critics say that without a revolutionary reputation, Díaz-Canel has struggled to contain the discontent with economic problems and surging coronavirus cases that boiled over into widespread protests on the evening of July 11.

       Read more:

       Cuba’s president confronts a nation in crisis. Among his challenges: ‘He’s no Fidel.’

       Biden administration imposes sanctions on Cuban officials following attacks on protesters

       Cuba’s communist authorities have long feared change. Street protests show the risk of resisting it.