Kathrine Frich
Officials set up a special hotline to help stranded vacationers.
Summer trips usually mean loading up the car without a second thought.
But right now, thousands of drivers are stuck in endless lines just to get home. A sudden shock to the supply chain has brought a busy region to a halt.
Empty at the pump
Russian tourists and locals in occupied Crimea face a severe fuel shortage. Drones from Ukraine are hitting key supply routes, and strikes on oil facilities have disrupted the network.
According to the BBC cited by Digi24, frustrated drivers wait up to 10 hours at gas stations. The attacks have created massive bottlenecks across the entire peninsula.
Most fuel stops only let customers buy 20 liters at a time using prepaid vouchers. Prices are soaring as supplies dry up.
Searching for solutions
One resident explained his new routine to the independent website Bereg. “Now I walk to work. Of course, it’s less convenient than driving, but it’s not a huge problem,” he said.
He then joked about his limited travel options. “All I need now is to buy a horse,” he added.
Officials set up a special hotline to help stranded vacationers. Hundreds of buses currently sit idle across the region because they lack gas.
Sergei Aksionov, the regional head appointed by Moscow, admitted the bleak reality. “Unfortunately, it does not seem possible to fully satisfy the demand for fuel at the moment,” he said.
A dangerous drive
Bringing new fuel into the area is risky. Ferries are mostly out of service, and the Kerch Bridge is no longer safe for heavy cargo.
Craig Kennedy at Harvard University’s Davis Center told the BBC why drivers avoid it. “I wouldn’t want to put a truck full of diesel on the Kerch Bridge now, that’s asking for trouble,” he said.
Truckers must take a vulnerable overland route through Mariupol instead. Clément Molin from the Atum Mundi think tank told the BBC this road “is practically the backbone of the Russian occupation in the south”.
Hitting the troops
These civilian shortages are bleeding into military operations. The Russian Energy Ministry recently blamed enemy air attacks for the ongoing problems.
A pro-Kremlin Telegram account called Rybar explained how the damage spreads. “The attacks that empty civilian supply stations are also affecting the supply of troops in the south. The logistical crisis does not distinguish between military and civilian needs, it hits everything at once,” the channel posted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed his forces disabled nearly 40 percent of Russia’s “primary oil refining capacity” in May.
Sources: Digi24, BBC, Bereg, Atum Mundi, Telegram
