Ten-hour queues. A 20-litre limit - if there is any fuel at all. Across Russian-occupied Crimea, the summer holiday season has turned into a grinding ordeal as Ukraine’s sustained drone campaign shreds Moscow’s supply lines and intensifies a fuel crisis already triggered by long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Videos posted to social media show lines snaking around petrol stations across the peninsula. One resident of Simferopol told the independent website Bereg that he now walks to work. “All I’ve got to do now is buy a horse!” he added.
“Crimea faces severe fuel shortages after Ukrainian drone strikes cripple Russian supply lines, forcing 10-hour queues and 20-litre limits.”
At the vast majority of Crimean petrol stations, locals can only purchase up to 20 litres of fuel each using prepaid vouchers - if it is available at all. The shortage is acute enough that Moscow-installed local authorities have launched a special hotline to help Russian tourists who arrived before the crisis and now cannot find fuel to leave.
The cause lies hundreds of kilometres away. Ukraine’s drone forces have been targeting a key motorway and bridge linking the southern Russian city of Rostov to Crimea via the occupied port city of Mariupol. The road, said Clément Molin, an analyst at the French-based think tank Atum Mundi, “is basically the backbone of Russian occupation in the south”.
Since the start of May, Ukraine has carried out 300 drone strikes on trucks, including 30 tankers, and the campaign has become more intense this month. According to Robert Brovdi, Ukraine’s drone forces commander, military cargo traffic on the road decreased by 71% between late May and early June.
The effect on Crimea has been immediate. The peninsula is strategically vital for Moscow, used to launch drones and missiles at the rest of Ukraine, and is also a popular summer destination for Russians. But now, disgruntled tourists and locals alike are venting online about the disruption.
“Unfortunately, it does not appear possible to fully satisfy the demand for fuel at the current moment,” admitted the Kremlin-appointed regional head, Sergei Aksyonov, on 5 June. Hundreds of buses, he said, would not be leaving depots due to shortages. There are also reports of skyrocketing petrol and diesel prices.
On the evening of 8 June, Russia’s energy ministry acknowledged for the first time that there were problems with fuel supplies in “the southern regions” - a phrase likely referring to the occupied territories. Kyiv’s campaign has made it difficult for Moscow to provide military and civilian supplies, and the crisis shows no sign of easing.