MATANZAS: A Russian oil tanker docked in a Cuban port on Tuesday to deliver the first crude shipment to the crisis-hit island since January after Washington gave a reprieve from its fuel blockade.
The Anatoly Kolodkin, a tanker under US sanctions, entered the port of Matanzas, east of Havana, after sunrise to bring 730,000 barrels of crude following a three-week journey from Russia.
US President Donald Trump's decision to let Russia deliver the oil avoids a confrontation with Moscow and provides temporary relief to a country that has endured blackouts, fuel rationing and dwindling public transportation.
"It's great that the country is receiving oil because we need it for the crisis we are facing," Yoanna Rivero, a 49-year-old pharmacy worker who was exercising near the port, told AFP.
Felipe Serrano, a 76-year-old security guard, was waiting for the Russian ship to arrive.
"This is crucial for us to be able to survive because the country is paralyzed," he said.
Analysts, however, said the shipment would give Cuba only a brief respite.
"It can offer temporary breathing room, but it does not come close to resolving the scale of the deficit the country is facing," Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist at American University in Washington, told AFP.
"It is clearly not enough," he said, noting Cuba's power problems are "structural rather than episodic."
The Russian crude will be refined to produce gasoline for transportation as well as diesel and fuel oil for backup power generators, Irenaldo Perez, deputy director of the state-run oil firm CUPET, told official media.
Analysts say it could take around three weeks to refine and distribute.
The Cuban foreign ministry thanked Russia for its solidarity, saying on X "this valuable assistance arrives amid the energy blockade imposed by the United States, which is trying to strangle the Cuban people."
The Russian embassy in Cuba said on X it was its "duty to help our Cuban brothers under these difficult conditions!"
