Moscow, Russia - Russia and Cuba on Wednesday slammed the US energy blockade of the Caribbean island in a show of solidarity in Moscow, where Havana's foreign minister was due to meet with President Vladimir Putin.

Cuba's top diplomat Bruno Rodriguez traveled to traditional ally Russia seeking help as his country reels from a severe fuel crisis – intensified by Washington's de facto oil blockade.

US President Donald Trump cut off key supplies of Venezuelan oil to Cuba after ousting Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and has threatened sanctions on states that sell oil to Havana.

Rodriguez met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov ahead of seeing Putin, with the long-serving Russian diplomat using Soviet-era language to criticize Washington.

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"We call on the US to show common sense and refrain from the military-maritime blockade of the island of freedom," Lavrov said.

Havana has been allied to Moscow since the 1960s socialist revolution, relying on the Soviet Union for economic and political support for decades. The Kremlin maintained close ties with Cuba after the collapse of the USSR.

Moscow, Lavrov said, stood in "solidarity with our friends" as he called Cuba a "brotherly state to us," without making any concrete pledges of material support.

He condemned the US for "after more than a 70-year blockade now even threatening to toughen their illegitimate and anti-humane actions."

The US has had sanctions on Cuba since the 1960s.