A Russian tanker arrived in Cuba this week after President Donald Trump said he wouldn't enforce the U.S.'s oil blockade on the island.
"We have a tanker out there. We don't mind having somebody get a boatload because they need... they have to survive," Trump told reporters aboard the Air Force One on Sunday night.
"If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem whether it's Russia or not," Trump added, saying that the country is "finished." "Whether or not they get a boat of oil, it's not going to matter."
The Anatoly Kolodkin is carrying some 730,000 barrels of oil. Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev confirmed last week that the country was sending oil, describing it as "humanitarian aid." Moreover, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told press that the delivery was "raised well in advance" with the Trump administration.
He claimed that the "brutal blockade" was jeopardizing "life-support systems and electricity generation" and preventing the medical sector from operating properly. "Russia сonsiders it its duty not to stand aside, but to provide the necessary assistance to our Cuban friends."
Citing local doctors, The New York Times reported last week that patients were beginning to die as conditions in the island deteriorated due to continued lack of fuel.
Six doctors who spoke to the outlet said conditions at hospitals and clinics across the country are leading to otherwise preventable deaths.
"I can't tell you how many deaths, but I'm sure there are more than in the same period last year," Alioth Fernandez, chief anesthesiologist at Havana's largest pediatric hospital, told the outlet "I see it in shift handovers, in colleagues' comments and in children I've operated on."
The report went on to say that hospitals are canceling surgeries and sending patients home because doctors and nurses can't get to the facilities. Hospitals can't provide chemotherapy and dialysis either, and the production of medicine has been halted as well because there is no fuel.
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