I think they believe that images of living things become idols. If I recall, Amish have similar concerns, but they don’t try to enforce it outside of their community. Fortunately, there was no such thing as audio recording when their religion was invented, so hopefully at least that’ll be tolerated. Radio broadcasts are better than no broadcasts.
I wouldn’t consider a country that cannot manage its own power supply “successful.” I suspect the US would be more willing to help if Cuba stopped being a one-party authoritarian state that sides with America’s geopolitical enemies, namely Russia.