The statement was approved by the lower house of Russian parliament on Thursday. Sergei Baburin, a deputy speaker in the Duma and co-author of the document, said the UN General Assembly would once again consider lifting the blockade on October 29.
The address said that the U.S. has been ignoring UN General Assembly resolutions, which have reinforced and intensified economic pressure on Cuba, for years.
"The State Duma considers the continuing economic blockade of Cuba to be an act of intense pressure on a sovereign nation," the document said, and called on the U.S. to abide by international law.
Cuban authorities said two thirds of its current population had been born under the blockade, which causes hardship to all the island's social programs such as health, education, culture, science, transport and municipal services. The Cuban government estimates that the blockade has resulted in financial losses of around $86 billion.
Russian State Duma officials said the blockade policy also infringed upon third party interests, and called it "a shameful relapse of colonial thinking, a remnant of the Cold War, and interference in the affairs of a sovereign nation."
The U.S. first introduced an arms embargo in the late 1950s, during internal conflict between Cuban rebels and the Batista government. In 1960, the then U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced a partial economic embargo, and since then a succession of presidents have reinforced the blockade policy. In 1992, the U.S. introduced the Helms-Burton Act, which penalized foreign companies trading with Cuba.
