Cuba-Bound Tanker Carrying Russian Fuels Moves to Break Trump's Caribbean Blockade
200,000 barrels of Russian gasoil, a ship-to-ship transfer off Cyprus and a blockade order from Washington: the Sea Horse is heading to Cuba — and someone will have to blink first.
A ship believed to be carrying Russian fuels is en route to Cuba, putting US President Donald Trump’s sanctions to the test amid the island’s deepening energy crisis. The tanker Sea Horse, expected to arrive in early March, is carrying critical fuels according to data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler. Cuba is facing acute shortages of fuel needed for cooking, transportation and power generation, with available electricity having plummeted since the start of the year — satellite imagery shows nighttime light levels across the island are down as much as 50%.
The Sea Horse received its cargo via a ship-to-ship transfer off the coast of Cyprus and is likely carrying approximately 200,000 barrels of Russian gasoil, according to Kpler’s lead oil analyst Matt Smith. The US blockade has already seized at least nine ships involved in the transport of sanctioned oil. Earlier this month, the tanker Ocean Mariner — a vessel regularly used to ship fuels to Cuba — diverted course and is now signalling the Bahamas as its destination. Pressure on Havana has been mounting since late last year, when US forces seized a ship carrying Venezuelan crude, and the Trump administration subsequently ordered Venezuela’s interim government to halt all crude shipments to the island.
Trump also threatened tariffs on any nation supplying Cuba with fuel, leading Mexico — a historically steady supplier — to cut off shipments as well. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meeting with his Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, publicly urged Washington to “show common sense” and “abandon its plans for a naval blockade,” describing any such action as “unacceptable.” Moscow has also confirmed it intends to send crude oil and refined products to Cuba as “humanitarian aid.”