Russian-installed authorities in occupied Crimea have suspended fuel sales to private individuals and businesses amid a severe fuel shortage and a weak tourist season, as Ukrainian drone strikes continue to disrupt Russia’s oil and transport infrastructure.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-backed head of the peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, announced that as of June 21 gas stations in Crimea would no longer sell fuel to anyone except state agencies.
“Fuel will be supplied exclusively to state agencies responsible for maintaining essential services and ensuring security,” Aksyonov said in a short video address on Telegram, giving no immediate timeline for the restoration of fuel sales.
While occupation authorities have long struggled to keep the region adequately supplied with everything its 2 million residents need, including water and food, the fuel crisis has come into the spotlight amid the latest developments in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In recent months, Ukraine’s military has accelerated its campaign of medium-range drone strikes targeting fuel trucks supplying Crimea, connected to mainland Russia only by the Kerch Bridge and a roughly 100-kilometer-wide corridor of occupied Ukrainian territory.
Additionally, a broader Ukrainian drone campaign has targeted key Russian oil refineries, pipelines, and related infrastructure, contributing to fuel shortages not only on the peninsula, whose economy is heavily dependent on Russian tourists, but also in Russian regions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described such strikes as “long-range sanctions” against Russia — which largely finances its military effort with oil revenues — for refusing to end the war, now in its fifth year, and engage in diplomacy with Kyiv.
In his latest report on June 21, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had struck “maritime logistics used to transport oil in [Russia’s] Krasnodar region and an oil depot in temporarily occupied Kerch.”
“In addition, military logistics facilities were successfully struck, along with four radar stations belonging to [air defense] systems…. Russia understands only strength, and our long-range strength is certainly working for peace,” he added.
Aksyonov confirmed that the strikes targeted Crimea’s Kerch, claiming tfour people were killed and 28 others injured in the Ukrainian attack. He did not specify whether an oil facility in the area had been hit.
Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels showed footage of thick black columns of smoke rising from the area. RFE/RL cannot independently verify reports from Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions.
Meanwhile, Russian drone and missile strikes have continued to pound civilian targets across Ukraine, killing at least two people and injuring 14 others, including six children, in the country’s central Poltava region.
Diplomatic efforts led by US President Donald Trump’s administration to negotiate peace in Ukraine have stalled in recent months, as Washington has focused on the war against Iran and turmoil in the Middle East.
Kyiv and Moscow remain far apart on their negotiating positions, with the Kremlin sticking to its hard-line stance and offering no compromise over control of Ukraine’s key eastern region of Donetsk.
