MOSCOW has vowed to continue helping Cuba after a Russian tanker broke the illegal US blockade of the island to deliver its first shipment of oil in three months.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a weekly briefing on Wednesday that “Cuba is our closest friend and partner in the Caribbean, and we don’t have the right to abandon it.

“Assistance to Cuba will continue.”

Ms Zakharova said Russia stands in solidarity with the island’s people and demands that the US lift its “blockade on an independent sovereign state.”

US President Donald Trump said earlier this week that he had “no problem” with allowing Russian tanker the Anatoly Kolodkin to deliver 730,000 barrels of oil to the Bay of Matanzas, the country’s largest fuel storage port.

Experts say the delivery could be enough to meet Cuban demand for about 10 days.

The six-decade-long blockade was tightened after the unprovoked US attack on Venezuela on January 3, during which 100 people, including 30 Cubans, were killed and President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were kidnapped.

Washington’s interference in Venezuela has deprived Cuba of one of its main oil suppliers and has led to frequent blackouts, plunging hospitals, public transport and food production into crisis.

“The arrival of an oil tanker to a country has likely never generated so much news as the Russian one to Cuba,” Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio wrote on social media.

“It’s a sign of the brutal siege Cubans endure with heroism and stoicism.

“It’s a demonstration of the criminal cruelty of imperialism against a nation that refuses to be dominated.”

Mexico and Uruguay vowed this week to co-operate on sending oil and humanitarian aid shipments to Cuba.