Russian crude shipment reaches Cuba as U.S. allows humanitarian exemption

A Russia-flagged tanker carrying about 700,000 barrels of crude has arrived in Cuba’s Matanzas Bay, marking the first major oil delivery to the island since the Trump administration cut off its fuel supplies.

The vessel, Anatoly Kolodkin, which is under U.S. sanctions, entered Cuban territorial waters late on Sunday near the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Washington said it had permitted the shipment on humanitarian grounds.

The Aframax tanker reached Cuba’s main fuel storage port at sunrise under mostly clear skies and light winds, appearing to prepare for offloading. At the time, large parts of the nearby city and much of the country were without electricity.

"This is like a drop of water in the desert," said Matanzas resident Marino Gálvez, 66, who watched the ship from the city’s waterfront boulevard.

"What's being done to us is very unfair, and the people shouldn't have to pay for any government's policies."

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Cuba has gone three months without receiving an oil tanker, according to President Miguel Díaz-Canel, worsening an energy crisis that has led to repeated nationwide blackouts affecting healthcare, public transport and agriculture.

Once refined, the shipment is expected to give Cuba’s Communist-run government some temporary relief as it faces increasing pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump, which has pledged change in Cuba.

However, it will take several days before the crude can be processed into usable fuel.

The tanker is carrying Russian Urals crude, a medium sour grade well suited to Cuba’s ageing refineries.

The United States halted Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba after capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on 3 January and later threatened heavy tariffs on countries supplying crude to the island.

Mexico, previously one of Cuba’s largest suppliers alongside Venezuela, subsequently halted its shipments.

Asked whether more Russian deliveries could follow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “In the desperate situation that Cubans now find themselves in, this, of course, cannot leave us indifferent, so we will continue to work on this.”

The Trump administration said on Monday that any future oil shipments to Cuba would be reviewed on a “case-by-case” basis.

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