The fuel crisis in Crimea is worsening: gasoline is being sold based on ration cards and place in line
Amid a severe heat wave, residents of the temporarily occupied Crimea have been without a stable water supply for two weeks now. At the same time, the occupying authorities cannot agree on a single version of the fuel shortage: officials are citing different dates for when gasoline will become available again. Only the so-called “energy minister” of the occupying administration has acknowledged that no significant improvement should be expected in the near future.
For many Crimean drivers, the morning begins with checking local Telegram channels and public groups, which report which gas stations have fuel available that day. As of July 2, gasoline was available at only two gas stations in Simferopol, one in Yalta, and seven in Sevastopol.
Fuel supplies are strictly limited: each vehicle is allowed no more than 20 liters. To get gasoline, people have to stand in long lines for hours or pay to secure a spot in them. They charge between 3,000 and 5,000 rubles for this “service.” As a result, the actual cost of a liter of gasoline—which officially costs 205 rubles—effectively nearly doubles.
… and equals the price charged by scalpers—380–400 rubles per liter of gasoline or diesel.
The situation with electricity is even worse—you can’t buy it for any amount of money. In Sevastopol, an official announcement was made this morning: there would be no power outages today. Two hours later, the lights went out. In Saki, Dzhankoy, Feodosia, and Yevpatoria, residents aren’t expecting power back until at least the next morning. And Krasnoperekopsk and Armiansk have been living without electricity for the fifth day in a row. The day before, outraged residents of Armiansk demanded to be allowed into the occupation administration building—which, strangely enough, had been spared the blackout—just to charge their phones. Officials initially relented and allowed people into the auditorium, but this display of unprecedented generosity lasted only a few minutes. The residents had barely had time to plug in their devices when they were shown the door.
However, according to our sources in Armiansk, electricity isn’t the biggest problem here right now. Several districts of the city have been without water for two weeks now. Given that Crimea recorded a record high temperature of +35.9 degrees the day before—the highest in the history of weather observations—people are concerned about an outbreak of infectious diseases.
This was reported by the Crimean civic media outlet Cemaat.
The fuel crisis in Crimea has worsened: chronicles of a return to the home port.
As a reminder, the fuel shortage in Crimea has triggered a wave of mass layoffs and business closures.
Earlier, the Russian presidential administration sent special “recommendations” to state-run and pro-government media outlets regarding how exactly to report on the fuel shortage in the country.
The fuel crisis is also intensifying in Russia: gasoline is disappearing from gas stations and lines are growing.
Russia has allowed the use of lower-quality gasoline due to the fuel crisis.
