LatinNews Daily - 26 March 2026

*Russia’s energy minister, Sergey Tsivilyov, has told reporters that Russia is continuing to send humanitarian cargo supplies to Cuba, including fuel, according to Russian state-owned news agency Tass. It cites Tsivilyov as saying: “We are sending humanitarian cargoes. We have humanitarian support underway. Cuba has found itself in the hard situation as a result of sanction pressure. That is why we make humanitarian deliveries to Cuba now”. According to Tass, Tsivilyov added that this included “fuel supplies”. His comments come as the US Treasury Department on 19 March added Cuba to a list of countries blocked from a temporary waiver first issued on 12 March on transactions involving Russian crude oil and petroleum products. Earlier this month there were reports of two tankers carrying Russian fuel headed to Cuba. One, identified by the international media as the Sea Horse, likely carrying 200,000 barrels of Russian gas oil, has reportedly rerouted to Trinidad and Tobago. Yesterday the Miami Herald cited Jorge Piñón, an energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, as saying that the other, the Anatoly Kolodkin “appears to be maintaining a steady course toward Cuba”. Since the US military incursion in Venezuela at the start of the year and removal of former president Nicolás Maduro (2013-2026), Washington has been heaping unprecedented pressure on Cuba through a crippling oil blockade, which recently resulted in two national blackouts in the space of a week. A report released earlier this week by Cuba Study Group, a US-based non-partisan policy and advocacy organisation comprising Cuban-American business leaders, estimates that an investment package “anchored in publicly stated plans and verifiable benchmarks” points to a minimum of about US$6.6bn (in 2024 dollars) for investment in electricity generation to close the supply gap - before “accounting for substantial needs in transmission and distribution modernization, storage, and broader rehabilitation”.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 307 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options

• Subscribe
• Sign up for a one-time, 14-day trial