Russia Sends Oil Shipments to Cuba Amid Sweeping Island Blackouts

Russia dispatched two oil and gas tankers toward Cuba as the island's power grid collapsed on March 16, leaving roughly 10 million people without electricity, according to Cuban authorities and the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. The shipments, reported by the Financial Times on March 18, would mark the first Russian oil deliveries to Cuba this year and the first energy shipments from any country in three months.

The first vessel, the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse, was carrying around 27,000 tons of fuel and was expected to arrive by March 23, according to Samir Madani, co-founder of maritime intelligence company TankerTrackers, who spoke to the Financial Times. Windward AI, which identified Sea Horse as the key vessel in its own March 18 report, estimated the tanker transported around 190,000 to 200,000 barrels to Cuba and had likely discharged cargo in early March, before the grid collapse. The firm said Sea Horse switched off its Automatic Identification System during a ship-to-ship transfer near Cyprus, where it likely loaded its cargo, and sailed without Western insurance, both described as common indicators of sanctions circumvention. "The Hong Kong-flagged tanker, which is not sanctioned, has AIS patterns that suggest the tanker spoofed its location and likely sailed to Cuba to discharge its cargo in early March," Windward AI said.

The second vessel, the Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin, was carrying 730,000 barrels of fuel, according to Jorge Piñón, an energy expert at the University of Texas Energy Institute, who spoke to the Associated Press. TankerTrackers put the figure at between 725,000 and 728,000 barrels. Piñón said the tanker had lingered for 20 days in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean before resuming its west-southwestward course; at the time of his remarks it was approximately 958 nautical miles from Matanzas. The Financial Times reported the Anatoly Kolodkin was expected to reach Cuba by April 4. Unlike the Sea Horse, the Anatoly Kolodkin is on the list of vessels of its type sanctioned by the United States, the European Union, and the United Kingdom following Russia's war in Ukraine.

Even if the Anatoly Kolodkin arrives as expected, the fuel will not provide instant relief. "We're talking about crude oil that has to be refined into liquid fuels," Piñón said. "Each product has its specific demand." The previous detected shipment to Cuba was the Ocean Mariner, which carried 85,000 barrels from the Mexican port of Pajaritos on January 9, making the Anatoly Kolodkin's reported cargo roughly nine times that volume.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov set the political tone on March 17, one day after Cuba's grid failed. "We are ready to provide all possible assistance," Peskov told reporters at a briefing on Cuba. President Donald Trump, who earlier declared a national emergency over what he described as a threat from Havana, said at the White House that "whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it. They're a very weakened nation right now," and warned that countries supplying Cuba could face tariffs.

Senior State Department officials told Fox News that under existing law Cuban companies and citizens have legal pathways to purchase oil, but said the Cuban regime itself is making that impossible. "The U.S. oil embargo prevents the Cuban regime from purchasing oil only," one official confirmed, drawing a distinction between the regime and the broader Cuban population.

The tactics reportedly used by the Sea Horse, including disabling satellite tracking during ship-to-ship transfers and sailing without Western insurance coverage, are associated with the shadow fleet Russia has assembled to move oil around international sanctions since 2022. Analysts note the difficulty in tracking vessels that go dark: with AIS disabled, effective monitoring becomes nearly impossible until a ship reappears in port.