Russian Crude Reaches Cuba Amid U.S.-Forced Drought

The Cuban Foreign Ministry thanked Moscow this Tuesday for the shipment of some 730,000 barrels of Urals crude, after an involuntary fast from international fuel lasting over three months due to a strangulating ad hoc blockade imposed by the Trump administration. The latter seemed to soften its position of strength in the last hours by speaking of a dubious or almost unbelievable act of humanitarianism and consideration for the people. The record doesn´t forget.

"This valuable aid arrives amid the energy siege imposed by the United States, which is trying to asphyxiate the Cuban population," the Cuban ministry said on its X account. The current White House chief's disconnect from Cuban reality is so great that he said he preferred to let the crude in—a narrative suggesting that Russia and Cuba have no capacity to engage in this area without his permission—because Cubans had to survive and needed energy for their heating and cooling systems.

However, Karoline Leavitt stated on Monday that the decision did not imply a broad change in sanctions policy—which, reinforced to the maximum, seeks to once and for all fulfill the dream of overthrowing the revolutionary political regime on the Island—but rather that it only indicated a shift to a case-by-case review strategy. In the American press, it is said that Trump raised the Cuban issue in a recent conversation with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and indicated that he still did not want her to send crude to Cuba.

But, although Mexico had indeed become our main supplier in the last quarter of 2025, that is because it ended up being, in practice, the only one amid the dramatic drop in shipments from Venezuela, which then fully halted in December when the so-called "quarantine" began to be enforced with the seizure of the supertanker Skipper. The Russian crude will be refined and allocated to various strategic activities, such as electricity generation and transportation, but, even if extremely well managed, its availability should not extend beyond the first half of May.

Russia sent crude only once last year—in February—, and I do not believe it will send the equivalent of twenty shipments like the one brought by the Anatoly Kolodkin. Cuba needs a guarantee of supply stability that will only be possible if the United States loosens its grip on the neck. Marco Rubio just insisted in an interview with Fox News that news will soon be forthcoming regarding economic and political changes in Havana.

The latter in particular would imply a quite devastating, critical blow to the Cuban Revolution, given that in these circumstances of chronic crisis it practically lives on the pride of never having yielded to Washington's pressures, although, as I have said here, never since 1962 has it faced a danger like Trump, a man with total disdain for sovereignty and international law. Over the long haul, the interests are irreconcilable, unless at some point the White House ignores the Florida hawks and accepts a Caribbean Vietnam 90 miles away.

Source for the cover image.