US President Donald Trump said the US would not enforce a blockade of crude oil into Cuba as a loaded Russian tanker arrived on the Caribbean island. Russia said it was sending a “humanitarian shipment” of 100,000 tons of crude oil set to arrive on Monday, RIA Novosti reported, citing the Russian Ministry of Transport.
The sanctioned vessel Anatoly Kolodkin was reported waiting to unload shortly after Trump said he had “no problem” with a Russian crude tanker delivering fuel to Cuba. Speaking from Air Force One while returning to Washington from Mar-a-Lago, he said: “If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with that, whether it’s Russia or not.”
The arrival tests how far the Kremlin will go to aid its ally close to US territory, the Washington Post said. The Anatoly Kolodkin departed Primorsk on March 8 carrying around 730,000 barrels of crude.
The shipment is expected to provide major relief for Cuba, where President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the country had not received oil imports for three months, prompting strict rationing and a severe energy and power shortage. Cuba lost its main regional oil supplier and ally after the US captured Venezuela’s president Maduro; Trump later said he expected Cuba’s communist government to fall and threatened tariffs on any country that assists the island.
The Anatoly Kolodkin’s arrival comes amid sanctions on Russia by the US, EU and UK. Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev said last week that Moscow would continue supplying fuel to Cuba, a move framed as defiance of US restrictions.
