Russia recommended this Thursday (12) that its citizens do not travel to Cuba, at the same time that it announced that it would soon send a supply of oil to mitigate the consequences of the US energy embargo against the Caribbean island.
“We ask everyone who plans to travel to this country to take into account the situation created, taking into account the recommendations of the Russian Ministry of Economy,” said Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Foreign Affairs department, at a press conference.
The ministry recommended that Russian citizens “refrain from traveling to Cuba for tourist purposes until the situation normalizes.”
Furthermore, the ministry asked tour operators and travel agencies to suspend services, ticket sales and trips to Cuba.
Russian airlines will temporarily suspend flights to Cuba after evacuating tourists stranded on the island, as reported on Wednesday by the Russian civil aviation agency, Rosaviatsia.
Russia is the second largest source of tourists to Cuba, after Canada, with 131,000 travelers in 2025.
Furthermore, sources at the Russian embassy in Havana informed the newspaper this Thursday Performto which Moscow “expects to soon supply” a cargo of oil and petroleum products “as humanitarian aid”.
Russia last sent crude oil to the island – 100,000 tons – in February 2025, on orders from Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that Moscow and Havana were studying “possible ways to solve these problems or at least mitigate them.”
“The actions of external forces, which seek to worsen the energy crisis in Cuba, which includes the suspension of air communications with the island, are aimed at, among other things, causing discontent among the population and discomfort among foreign citizens,” Zakharova alleged.
Last Sunday, the Cuban regime warned international airlines operating on the island that, starting this Monday, the country would run out of aviation fuel.
Russian regime minimizes relations with the US when talking about threat of tariffs
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this Thursday that he does not want an escalation of tensions with the United States, but minimized the current level of commercial relations between the countries by citing aid to Cuba.
“We don’t want any escalation, but, on the other hand, today we (Russia and the USA) have almost no type of commercial exchange.”
At the end of January, Trump announced that he would apply tariffs on products imported from countries that send oil to Cuba.
In addition to Russia, Mexico has already expressed its continued support for Cuba by sending humanitarian aid, despite American pressure. President Claudia Sheinbaum said this week that she will continue sending aid to the island, and classified it as “very unfair” that the US is imposing tariffs on countries that export oil to Havana, in addition to considering that these taxes directly affect the population.
