“Russia is not going to leave the Western Hemisphere, no matter what they say in Washington.”
Last Thursday (April 9), Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov paid an official visit to Cuba where he met with the Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel. The visit came ten days after the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodki broke the United States’ de facto oil blockade of Cuba, providing the island with 100 tons — roughly two weeks’ worth — of much needed crude oil.
“It is the first and only fuel we have received in four months, and that has huge importance for us,” Diaz-Canel said. In response, Ryabkov, quoted by TASS, pledged that Moscow’s help for Cuba would go beyond the large shipload of oil it had already sent to the island.
I am certain that the events of recent weeks in our relations will have us moving forward to find solutions to the toughest problems … emerging from the illegal and absolutely unacceptable blockade of the island by the US.
Almost immediately after the arrival of the Kolodki on March 30, Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev said Moscow was already preparing a second shipment of fuel for its long-standing Caribbean ally. The ship tracking site Tanker Trackers reported on Friday that a ship carrying 40 million litres of diesel, equivalent to 251,000 barrels, appears to be heading Cuba’s way.
The question is whether or not the Trump administration will be willing to let a one-off shipment of Russian oil to Cuba turn into a regular stream of Russian oil and gas for the energy-starved island that almost seven decades’ worth of US governments have been trying to regime change? And if not, what is it prepared to do to stop it?
No doubt Marco Rubio will have something to say on the matter. A few months ago, he said on Meet the Press, specifically in reference to US control of Venezuelan oil: “we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States.”
That, howeer, was before the Trump administration decided to bog US forces down in an “epic” quagmire of its own making — with a little helping hand from Tel Aviv, of course — in West Asia. Meanwhile, Russia-Cuban relations appear to be going from strength to strength.
“Russia is not going to leave the Western Hemisphere; no matter what they say in Washington, they are obsessed with the idea of ousting Russia, as well as China, from this region,” Ryabkov said. He also noted that Russia’s relations with Cuba are of a “special nature.”
“Both politically and emotionally, Cuba means a lot to the people of Russia. For us, Cubans are brothers,” the diplomat stressed. “And we cannot just betray Cuba, this is completely out of the question, we cannot leave it to the mercy of fate”.
“That would be fundamentally contrary to what is at the heart of our brotherhood and our friendship,” he said.
Ryabkov discussed this friendship in depth in an interview with TASS prior to his departure: “the solidarity that Cuba shows towards our compatriots is unprecedented, since there is no measure that can quantify the value of those who organised and supported for decades a large-scale rehabilitation program for the victims of the Chernobyl disaster.”
All this, despite all the difficulties that Cuba suffered with the collapse of the USSR, Ryabkov said. Now, Cuba is going through arguably even harder times, with a declining US hegemon determined to strangle it into submission. But it is apparently not alone.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Russian and Cuban delegates “engaged in a thorough exchange on pressing bilateral, regional, and international matters during the contacts conducted in the spirit of Russian-Cuban allied relations and strategic partnership.”
One of the main outcomes from these negotiations was a deal struck that will seemingly grant Russian companies significant influence over industrial operations in Cuba. From Caracas-based TeleSur’s article, “Cuba and Russia Strengthen Economic Cooperation” (machine translated):
As part of the Cuban strategy to boost the economy, Russian companies were authorized to manage industrial facilities on the island, a measure aimed at mitigating the effects of the internal crisis.
The decision was made at the XXIII Russian-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission, held on April 1 in St. Petersburg, where it was agreed to promote joint projects that strengthen Cuba’s productive capacity.
The Russian Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Roman Chekushev, stressed that this initiative seeks to increase Cuba’s attractiveness as an investment destination, opening new opportunities for business cooperation.
In other words, the Trump administration’s energy strangulation of Cuba may finally be achieving one of its main goals: the opening up of Cuba to overseas private businesses… from Russia!
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find much in the way of information about this new arrangement besides a couple of articles on a recent interview Chekushev gave to RIA Novosti (machine translation). The first is a Russian-language article by RBC Radio, a prominent Russia business radio station (machine translation):
“Not so long ago, at an intergovernmental commission, we talked with Cuban partners that Russian companies would be allowed to manage industrial production in the republic,” [Chekushev] said.
Chekushov pointed out that this agreement will be of interest to Russian business in considering Cuba as a “point of application” for its investments.
In early April, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia would continue to provide assistance to Cuba, which is considered by Moscow as its closest partner in the Caribbean.
He noted that against the backdrop of an acute energy crisis and the consequences of the American blockade, the support provided by Russia is now especially in demand.
The Moscow Times also covered the same interview, adding a few additional titbits:
Cuba will allow Russian companies to manage industrial production on the Communist island as its energy crisis continues under a U.S. embargo, a senior Russian official said Friday.
“We discussed with our Cuban partners that Russian companies would be granted access to the management of industrial enterprises in the republic,” Deputy Industry Minister Roman Chekushov told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
The Cuban state company Tecnomatica had expressed interest in Russian LTE communication systems, the ministry was reported to have announced last fall.
The assembly of Russian vehicles in Cuba was suspended last month — just a year after launching — due to power outages, is also expected to resume once energy supplies normalize, Chekushov said Thursday…
“At the present moment, Russia is 100% in solidarity with Cuba; despite the complexity the country is going through, we are by your side, said the deputy foreign minister,” the Cuban president’s office wrote on X on Thursday.
The agreement, unsurprisingly, appears to be the result of months of negotiations between senior Russian and Cuban government officials that preceded the Trump administration’s de facto energy blockade of Cuba. An article by TASS in late November hints at the intended scale of collaboration between the two parties (again, machine translated):
Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Roman Chekushov, as part of a working trip to Cuba, held a number of bilateral meetings, at which promising areas of cooperation between the two countries in the civil aircraft and automotive industry, pharmaceuticals and heavy engineering were discussed.
Chekushov held meetings with Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment of Cuba Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga and Minister of Industry of Cuba Eloy Alvarez.
“Within the framework of Roman Chekushov’s meetings with Oscar Perez-Oliva and Eloy Alvarez, promising areas of industrial and trade cooperation were touched upon. Among them are heavy engineering, automotive, civil aircraft construction, and the pharmaceutical industry. We are talking not only about the supply of finished products, but also about comprehensive cooperation, which provides for the creation of assembly plants, personnel training, service, building long-term logistics chains,” the report says.
Russian competencies are also in demand in power engineering, digital technologies, and artificial intelligence. Following the talks, the parties agreed to accelerate work on the project for the modernization of the Antillana de Acero metallurgical plant for its completion by the end of 2026, as well as on regular contacts at the ministerial level.
Despite the US’ de facto energy blockade of Cuba and its ongoing regime change operation against the island’s communist government, Russia is still apparently committed to these cooperation plans. Cuba’s economy, meanwhile, slides closer to the abyss as the US’ energy embargo and broader sanctions continue to bite, and needs all the help it can get.
As we noted in a February 24 post, Cuba, unlike Venezuela, is a BRICS associate partner (Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva didn’t dare block its membership application, like he did Venezuela’s). This fact has more than symbolic import. As the Cuban commentator El Necio noted, if Cuba was hung out to dry, the message to the Global South would be that BRICS membership counts for little, if anything, in the face of an increasingly assertive US empire.
We also noted that Moscow could spare a tanker or two, though it would risk inflaming tensions with the US just as the two countries are locked in negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict. Those negotiations, however, appear to be going nowhere fast…
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Nick Corbishley 