President Donald Trump confirmed this Sunday that his administration will allow the arrival of the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin to Cuba, a sanctioned vessel that carries between 700,000 and 730,000 barrels of crude oil and is expected to dock at the port of Matanzas on Tuesday.
When asked by a journalist during a press meeting aboard Air Force One whether it was true that the United States would allow the tanker to pass, Trump responded directly: "If a country wants to send some oil to Cuba, I have no problem with that."
When the journalist asked him if he was worried that this would benefit Putin, the president dismissed it: "It doesn't help him. He loses an oil ship. That's all it is. It doesn't bother me."
Trump justified the decision with a humanitarian argument: "I prefer to let him in, whether from Russia or any other country, because people need heating, cooling, and all the other things you need."
At the same time, the president was emphatic about the Cuban regime: "Cuba is finished. They have a bad regime. They have very poor and corrupt leadership. And whether they receive an oil tanker or not, it won't matter."
The U.S. Coast Guard, which had at least two vessels deployed north of Cuba, received instructions not to intercept the tanker, according to sources cited by The New York Times.
Anatoly Kolodkin, sanctioned by the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, set sail from the Russian port of Primorsk on March 8 with a fictitious declared destination. Its arrival would mark the first major fuel supply that Cuba has received in over three months.
The oil blockade was imposed by Trump through the Executive Order 14380, signed on January 29, 2026, which declared a national emergency and threatened tariffs on any country that supplied crude oil to the island.
However, the relief that the shipment may bring will be limited and temporary. The expert Jorge Piñón from the University of Texas estimates that the shipment covers a maximum of two weeks of supply for Cuba.
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