25,000 tons of wheat donated by Russia arrive in Cuba

This Wednesday the Russian Ambassador to Cuba, Andrei Guskov, participated in the official ceremony ofdelivery of 25 thousand tons of wheat that arrived in Cuba as a donation sent by the Russian government.

At the end of December, the state agency Prensa Latina reported that authorities of the Eurasian giant had allocated more than 800 million rubles - around 11,576,749 US dollars - to the Ministry of Emergencies for thepurchase of wheat and its shipment to Havana.

A Russian government decree specified thatThe delivery would be made in the form of humanitarian aid and would arrive by sea.

In April of last year,Russia donated another 20,000 tons of wheat to Cuba, at a time when flour shortages led Cuban authorities to investigate whether they could use chickpea flour to produce bread.

Russia is a powerful ally of the Cuban regime, which it has supported in times of crisis with shipments of humanitarian aid to minimize social unrest and the health crisis associated with the coronavirus pandemic.

In October 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Chernyshenko announced that his government was consideringregularly send supplies such as oil to the island and derivatives, as well as fertilizers and wheat.

According to the Russian official, Havana had requested the government ofVladimir Putin the regular shipment of these supplies, to alleviate the serious energy and food crisis suffered by the Caribbean country.

At the end of November 2022, Miguel Díaz-Canel announced that during his last visit to Russia the importance of increasing Russian investment projects in the country was evaluated and"the supply of food and inputs for its production."

In recent years, Moscow has made several food donations to alleviate the economic crisis in Cuba. Between 2020 and 2021, it funded the World Food Program (WFP) to send aid worth $4 million.

In November 2021, Russia delivered to Havana through the WFP672 tons of vegetable oilfor free distribution to Family Care Systems (SAF), low-income people and soup kitchens for some 70,000 elderly people, and to those affected in emergency situations.