Cuba’s president has warned that there will be “a bloodbath with incalculable consequences” if the US launches military action against the island.

Miguel Díaz-Canel took to social media to say that Cuba posed no threat to any country, and had no intentions to aggravate the US.

Donald Trump has repeatedly made allusions to “taking” the country since his return to the White House, and has hinted at engaging the military to do so.

“I do believe I’ll have the honour of taking Cuba,” the US president told reporters following the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, on Jan 3.

In blocking oil shipments from other countries to Cuba and taking control over Venezuelan oil, the US has cut off Cuba’s energy supply, causing mass blackouts across the island as tensions continue to boil over.

On Monday, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed sanctions on nine Cuban nationals tied to the Cuban government for involvement in Russian oil sales.

The sanctions were announced just days after it was reported that the US justice department is preparing an indictment against Cuba’s former president, Raúl Castro.

The indictment, which could reportedly come as early as Wednesday, is tied to an incident in which two small planes were shot down by the Cuban air force over international airspace in 1996, resulting in the deaths of four passengers tied to a Cuban-exile group.

Rodriguez Castro, Mr Castro’s grandson and bodyguard, has been an unexpected figure in the middle of US-Cuba negotiations.

Nicknamed “the crab”, the younger Castro has been seen in meetings with senior officials of the US state department.

A US delegation led by John Ratcliffe, the intelligence director, met Cuban interior ministry officials last Thursday in Havana.

It was only the second time that a head of US intelligence had set foot on Cuba, the meeting was aimed to offer assistance and de-escalating tensions between the two nations.

After the meeting, a CIA official told CBS News that the US would be prepared to step in on economic and security issues under the condition that Cuba makes fundamental changes.

Classified US intelligence documents published by Axios on Sunday, drafted as a pretext of US military intervention, claimed Cuba was in possession of 300 drones and had been evaluating striking US targets at nearby Guantanamo Bay and on American naval vessels in Florida’s Key West.

The classified document also said that some Iranian military leaders were in Havana.

Bruno Rodriguez, Cuba’s foreign minister, took to social media to address the situation, writing that “without any legitimate excuse, the USA government builds, day after day, a fraudulent file to justify the ruthless economic war against the Cuban people and the eventual military aggression.”

The UN’s Office on Humanitarian Assistance and the World Health Organisation have called for urgent support as electricity, fuel, medicine and medical supply shortages have strained Cuba’s healthcare system affecting more than 100,000 patients, with blackouts lasting up to 20 hours in some areas.