Russia welcomes the arrival of 100,000 tons of its oil to Cuba and considers it a duty to assist the Caribbean nation amid the desperate situation it currently faces, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov stated Monday.

"We are pleased that this batch of petroleum products has reached the island," Peskov told reporters, adding that "Russia believes it has a duty not to stand aside and to provide the necessary assistance to our Cuban friends."

"We cannot remain indifferent to the desperate situation Cubans are living through today, so we will continue working on this," he affirmed.

When asked to comment on reports that the United States had allowed the Russian fuel to reach Cuba despite the energy blockade imposed on the island, Peskov confirmed that "this matter had indeed been raised in advance through contacts with American counterparts."

Earlier Monday, Russia's Ministry of Transport confirmed that the Russian oil tanker Anatoly Kolodkin had docked at the Cuban port of Matanzas carrying a humanitarian shipment of 100,000 tons of oil.

The day prior, a U.S. official told The New York Times that the U.S. Coast Guard would not move to block the Russian tanker, notwithstanding the embargo imposed on Cuba by the Trump administration.

President Trump himself downplayed the matter when reporters asked him about it aboard Air Force One on Sunday evening. "We don't care if somebody gets a shipment, because they need it — they have to survive," the president said, as quoted by the Times.

On January 29, Trump signed an executive order enabling the United States to impose tariffs on imports from countries that supply oil to Cuba.

Washington's actions have triggered a severe fuel shortage on the island. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced what he described as Washington's "energy blockade," calling it "condemnable that a power of the dimension of the United States would adopt such an aggressive and criminal policy toward a small nation."

The Cuban president acknowledged that the country faces serious crude oil availability problems affecting electricity generation and basic daily activities, noting that no fuel had entered the country since December.