Fuel stations on the Russian-held Crimean peninsula were out of petrol on Thursday, Reuters witnesses said, as a Ukrainian campaign against supply lines to the peninsula escalates.
A Reuters witness in Sevastopol, the peninsula's largest city, said that there was no fuel at most local petrol stations, with supplies struggling even to keep up with a rationing regime imposed in recent weeks.
Another, in the resort town of Yevpatoriya, said that there was a long queue outside the single working petrol station there.
Ukraine has been intensifying drone strikes on supply lines to the peninsula, which Russia seized from Kyiv in 2014. Local authorities have imposed fuel rationing regimes, with some foodstuffs also running short.
Fuel shortages in Russia have been reported by the media and on social media in around a dozen regions, according to data compiled by Reuters. Besides Russian-held Crimea, only two regions in Siberia have officially confirmed the shortages.
Most other regions have said that the situation is under control and some disruptions were caused by panic buying. Moscow denied there were any problems with fuel supplies.
State-owned lender Sberbank has said that rising fuel prices represent an additional inflation risk for the Russian economy.
On Wednesday, Russian-backed Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said that plans for distributing rationed petrol had been delayed because trucks had been unable to bring the fuel into the city, following recent Ukrainian strikes on supply routes.
Fuel is mostly delivered to Crimea by road and rail via the Russian-held territories to the north, which Moscow overran in 2022. Those routes have increasingly been disrupted by drone attacks.
Fuel previously reached Crimea by barge to an oil terminal in the city of Feodosia, but supplies were cut after Ukraine struck the terminal in April.
In Sevastopol, the Moscow-installed governor said that Ukrainian drones had caused light damage overnight, with 33 downed. The Russian-backed governor of the Moscow-held part of Kherson region, which borders Crimea to the north, said that Ukraine had targeted bridges in the region, causing some damage.
A Ukrainian commander, Dmytro Filatov, told Ukrainian media on Thursday that Kyiv's forces had targeted the Chonhar bridge, a key route between Crimea and Kherson region, causing "critical" damage and halting traffic.
He also said they had struck the town of Armiansk, which sits astride the narrow isthmus that is the only overland link between Crimea and the mainland, destroying trucks carrying fuel and ammunition.
Kyiv also struck in southern Russia overnight, authorities said, causing damage including a fire at the Afipsky oil refinery that has since been extinguished. — Reuters
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