Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that Moscow held contacts with the administration of United States President Donald Trump over the situation in Cuba, the Caribbean island that has faced a deepening economic crisis since the start of the year.
Speaking on June 4 at a meeting with the heads of international news agencies during the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin confirmed the exchanges when pressed by a reporter. “To answer your direct question … you asked whether we had been in contact with the US administration on the Cuban question. Yes, we were,” he said, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
Putin said he “did not wish to comment further” on the substance of the talks. He recalled that Russia had sent a tanker carrying 100,000 tonnes of crude oil to the island in late March, in an effort to break what Moscow has described as a US blockade.
“Cuba is a friendly country. Our relations have developed over decades, and the US administration is aware of this. Our contacts with Cuba continue,” he said.
The comments have come amid sharply rising tension between Washington and Havana. Trump has effectively imposed a fuel blockade on Cuba by threatening tariffs on any country that supplies it with oil, worsening power cuts across the island.
Trump has also said the US aimed to bring about political change in Cuba, telling reporters that Washington would “deal with Cuba very soon”. US secretary of state Marco Rubio, whose parents emigrated from the island, has described the Cuban Government as a failed state lying around 90 miles (145km) from Florida.
The dispute has taken on a military dimension. On May 29, General Francis Donovan, head of US Southern Command, held a rare meeting with senior Cuban officers, including General Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, at the perimeter of the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, in southeast Cuba.
That meeting followed the deployment of the USS Nimitz carrier strike group to the Caribbean. Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez has warned that any US military action would cause a “bloodbath” costing thousands of lives.
Russia, a long-standing ally of Havana, has said it would provide what help it could, though Putin gave no detail on what Moscow might offer.
