Cuba Gets First Oil in Three Months as U.S. Allows Sanctioned Russian Tanker Through

A sanctioned Russian Cuba oil tanker carrying 730,000 barrels of crude docked at the port of Matanzas on Monday morning, breaking a three-month blockade that had pushed the island nation to the edge of humanitarian collapse. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the US Coast Guard authorized passage of the Anatoly Kolodkin after President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday night that he had “no problem” with the delivery — an abrupt reversal of the fuel embargo his administration had imposed on Havana.

The tanker departed Russia’s Primorsk port on March 8, was escorted by a Russian navy vessel through the English Channel, and crossed the Atlantic unimpeded. The delivery represents Cuba‘s first oil import since January and could yield roughly 180,000 barrels of diesel — enough to cover about nine to ten days of the island’s daily demand, according to Jorge Piñón of the University of Texas Energy Institute.

Cuba’s Energy Crisis

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the country had gone three months without oil imports. The blockade began after the US captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January, cutting off Cuba’s main supplier, which had been providing crude on favorable terms for years.

The Trump administration then blocked all remaining Venezuelan shipments and threatened punitive tariffs on any third country — including Mexico — that supplied oil to the island. The result was devastating: multiple total grid collapses across the island of 9.6 million people, severe gasoline rationing, hospitals unable to operate, and public transport ground to a halt.

Why Washington Blinked

The US official cited by The New York Times did not clarify why Washington authorized the shipment. But the decision arrives in a broader context: the Trump administration has also temporarily eased sanctions on Russian oil globally to improve crude flows disrupted by the Iran war and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Russia had announced weeks earlier that it was considering sending crude to Cuba on humanitarian grounds — a move that amounted to a direct challenge to Washington. The Anatoly Kolodkin itself is sanctioned by the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom over Russia’s war in Ukraine, making its authorized passage all the more striking.

A second vessel, the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse carrying 200,000 barrels of Russian-origin diesel originally bound for Cuba, rerouted to Venezuela this week — suggesting Washington’s flexibility may have limits.

Relief Is Temporary

The 730,000 barrels will take 15 to 20 days to refine and another five to ten days to distribute as finished products, Piñón estimated. Even once processed, the shipment covers barely a week of Cuba’s electricity generation needs — a stopgap, not a solution.

Trump himself made clear the broader pressure campaign remains intact. Speaking from Miami last Friday, he said that after the fall of Venezuela and the attack on Iran, “Cuba will be next.” The Caribbean region is watching closely: the tanker’s passage signals that even within an aggressive maximum-pressure strategy, the humanitarian cost of a total blockade on a nation of nearly 10 million people has limits that Washington is not prepared to test indefinitely.

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