MOSCOW (AP) — Russia plans to send a second oil tanker to Cuba, the country’s Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilyov said Thursday, citing the island’s ongoing energy blockade and reiterating Russia’s solidarity with the troubled Caribbean nation.
The announcement comes just two days after sanctioned Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin docked at the Cuban port of Matanzas laden with 730,000 barrels of oil, marking the first time in three months that an oil tanker reached the island. Experts have said that shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.
Tsivilyov spoke on the sidelines of an energy forum in the Russian city of Kazan.
“Cuba is in a total blockade, it’s been cut off. Whose shipment of oil made it? A Russian vessel broke through the blockade. A second one is being loaded right now, we will not leave Cubans alone in trouble,” the minister said.
In late January, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba, although he recently said he had “no problem” with the Russian oil tanker that delivered relief to the island on Tuesday, saying he didn't think it would help prop up the Cuban government.
“Cuba’s finished,” Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington on Sunday. “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.”
Cuba produces barely 40% of its required fuel and relies on imports to sustain its crumbling energy grid.
Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted when the U.S. attacked the South American country and arrested its leader.
Since then, Mexico also has halted its oil shipments to Cuba after Trump warned of tariffs.
The U.S. energy blockade has deepened Cuba's energy and economic crises, leading to severe blackouts, cuts to the state-run food ration system, and shortages of water and medicine, with the island's most vulnerable hardest hit.
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