Russia will send a second ship carrying oil to Cuba as the island grapples with a US fuel blockade, Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev said Thursday.
Cuba has been suffering from an energy crisis since January, when US forces captured Venezuela’s socialist president and Cuban ally Nicolas Maduro.
His removal deprived Cuba of its main oil supplier.
Washington then threatened to tariff any country that sold or provided oil to the island, although it allowed Russia to deliver a tanker earlier this week for “humanitarian” reasons.
“A vessel from the Russian Federation broke through the blockade. A second one is now being loaded. We will not leave the Cubans in trouble,” Tsivilev was quoted as saying by Russian state media.
During an official visit in Saint Petersburg, Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva told Russian network RT on Wednesday that Havana and Moscow “have begun efforts to achieve stability in fuel supplies” amid a “cruel energy blockade by the United States”.
He also said the two sides made progress in talks aimed at increasing the participation of Russian companies in oil exploration and production in Cuba.
Moscow historically maintains close ties with Havana and has criticised Washington for attempting to block fuel deliveries.
Since the blockade began, the communist-run island has endured weeks of blackouts, fuel rationing and food shortages.
A Russian tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude arrived in the Cuban port of Matanzas on Tuesday, providing the island with its first oil shipment since January.
US President Donald Trump, whose administration has long regarded Cuba as a hostile regime, said on Sunday he had “no problem” with Russia sending oil to the island.
“Cuba’s finished. They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership and whether or not they get a boat of oil it’s not going to matter,” he said.
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