Russia sends a second vessel with oil to Cuba and openly claims to have broken the blockade. Thus, Moscow enters the island’s energy crisis even more significantly.
Russia is preparing to send a second vessel with oil to Cuba, Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilyov told reporters. His announcement came just two days after a Russian tanker with 730,000 barrels of raw material docked in the Cuban port of Matanzas, AP reports, writes TASR.
“Cuba is under a complete blockade, it was cut off. Whose shipment of oil arrived there? The Russian vessel broke the blockade. The second one is being loaded, we will not leave the Cubans in trouble,” said the minister.
Russia allowed the transport
The Caribbean island has been plagued by an energy crisis since January, when US forces captured and took President Nicolás Maduro, who was an ally of Cuba, out of Venezuela and the country lost its main oil supplier. Washington subsequently declared that it would impose tariffs on any country that would supply the island with this raw material, although it has now allowed Russia to deliver the tanker for “humanitarian reasons”.
US President Donald Trump, who views the Cuban government as a hostile regime, said on Sunday that he had “no problem” with Moscow sending oil to the island. “(Cuba) has very bad and corrupt leaders, and whether they get one ship of oil or not doesn’t change that,” he said. Cuba produces only about 40 percent of the fuel it needs and relies on imports to maintain its power grid. Experts say that the expected shipment can bring her approximately 180,000 barrels of diesel after oil processing, which is enough to cover the country’s consumption for approximately nine to ten days.
