The anniversary marks the July 26, 1953 attack led by Fidel Castro against the government of Fulgencio Batista, an event widely regarded as the beginning of the Cuban Revolution.

Addressing the ceremony, Diaz-Canel said Cuba continued to face growing pressure from the United States.

"Current generations are going up against the walls of a genocidal policy that has set out to suffocate the entire people in order to seize the country," he said.

The Cuban president also accused the US Department of State of creating sanctions and justifications against the island.

"They are a modern version of the writers of edicts and military decrees who became so feared and hated in the dark mediaeval times or during the Nazi occupations in the Second World War. As if the rest of the world were their colony, they order how things must be done under threats of punishment or aggression," he declared.

Diaz-Canel also criticised a recent US State Department report accusing Cuba of influencing political organisations in the United States, infiltrating institutions and supporting movements linked by Washington to terrorism.

"By accusing Cuba, they are not only seeking a scapegoat, an external agent, they are seeking someone to blame for the protests of the sectors hardest hit by an economy that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer to unsustainable limits," he stated.

He added, "They are criminalising protest without analysing its causes, and opportunistically they are seeking a new excuse to sustain their genocidal policy against Cuba," insisting the country does not represent "a threat."

Participants at the ceremony also criticised the US blockade.

"With these new measures tightening the energy blockade by the United States government against our people, we Cubans continue resisting and creating new ways to keep the work of the revolution alive. We are not going to give in in the effort to keep our revolution held high," one attendee said.

Diaz-Canel's remarks came after the Donald Trump administration imposed an oil blockade on Cuba and expanded sanctions, measures that have intensified the island's economic difficulties, including blackouts and fuel shortages.