Reports say US will allow Russia to send oil to Cuba
If unloaded, it would mark the island's first oil shipment since January and offer temporary respite to a nation of 9.6 million people grappling with a worsening energy and economic emergency.
A Russian oil tanker nearing Cuba has opened a narrow lifeline for the island as US President Donald Trump insisted the shipment would do little to change the trajectory of Havana’s communist government.
Even as the expected delivery promised some badly needed relief, Mr Trump sharpened his warnings toward Cuba’s leadership, saying the government would collapse “within a short period of time.”
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The Anatoly Kolodkin, carrying 730,000 barrels of crude, was positioned off Cuba’s northeastern coast yesterday evening and was due to dock at the western port of Matanzas by tomorrow, according to shipping tracker MarineTraffic.
If unloaded, it would mark the island’s first oil shipment since January and offer temporary respite to a nation of 9.6 million people grappling with a worsening energy and economic emergency.
“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,” Mr Trump said.
“I’d prefer letting it in, whether it’s Russia or anybody else, because the people need heat and cooling and all of the other things that you need,” he added.
Donald Trump speaks to reporters on board Air Force One
Cuba lost its main regional ally and oil supplier in January after US forces captured Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolas Maduro.
Mr Trump later threatened tariffs against any country shipping oil to Cuba and has also floated the idea of “taking” the island.
“Within a short period of time, it’s going to fail, and we will be there to help it out,” he said.
“We’ll be there to help our great Cuban Americans out who were thrown out of Cuba, in many cases, their family members were mutilated and killed by (Fidel) Castro…Cuba’s going to be next.”
Daily outages
Following the US oil blockade, Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel rolled out emergency steps aimed at conserving fuel, including tight gasoline rationing.
He said this month that “any external aggressor will encounter an unbreakable resistance.”
The squeeze has driven up fuel prices, reduced public transport and prompted some airlines to suspend flights to Cuba, adding pressure to the country’s already fragile economy.
Cubans have faced repeated outages as the country’s aging power plants struggle to keep up with demand. Since 2024, there have been seven nationwide blackouts, including two this month, triggering rare protests.
In recent days, a humanitarian aid convoy delivered more than 50 tonnes of medicine, food, solar panels and other supplies to Cuba by air and sea.
The Anatoly Kolodkin, which is under US sanctions, departed the Russian port of Primorsk on 8 March.
It was accompanied by a Russian navy ship through the English Channel before the vessels separated when the tanker reached the Atlantic Ocean, according to the British Royal Navy.
The New York Times, citing an unnamed US official briefed on the matter, reported that the US Coast Guard was permitting the tanker to continue to Cuba.
Another vessel said to be carrying Russian diesel to Cuba, the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse, changed course to Venezuela this week.
Diesel an ‘urgent need’
Once the Anatoly Kolodkin’s crude reaches Cuba, refining it would take roughly 15-20 days, followed by another five to ten days to distribute the resulting fuel products, according to Jorge Pinon, a Cuba energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin.
“The urgent need today in Cuba is diesel,” the former oil executive said.
Mr Pinon said the Russian cargo could be turned into 250,000 barrels of diesel, enough to meet Cuba’s needs for about 12-and-a-half days.
He said officials would then face a difficult choice over whether to direct that fuel to backup power generators or to buses, tractors and trains needed to keep the economy moving for the next two weeks.
“If you are Diaz-Canel or somebody making the decision, you go, ‘OK, where where do I go with that diesel?'” he said.
“Do I want to generate more electricity so there are less apagones (blackouts)? Or do I want to put it in the transportation sector?”