The largest city in Crimea announces that there is no more fuel even on the card: “There is no point in queuing at gas stations”

The governor of the Russian-controlled Crimean city of Sevastopol said on Wednesday that plans to distribute rationed gasoline had been delayed because trucks could not carry the fuel into the city following Ukraine's recent attacks on supply routes, Reuters reports.

Mikhail Razvozhayev's announcement that gasoline rationing coupons could not be temporarily honored coincided with statements by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Kiev's long-running campaign targeting Russia's energy assets and its annexed territories had proven effective.

Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, well ahead of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, introduced fuel rationing last month due to shortages on the peninsula.

“The tankers didn't come last night”

“Unfortunately, tanker trucks could not reach the city tonight,” Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram, adding that priority will be given to refueling public transport and utilities, emergency and government vehicles on Thursday.

“I'm speaking to everyone: there's no point in queuing at … petrol stations tomorrow,” he said late on Wednesday, adding that existing fuel rationing coupons would be canceled and new ones issued on Thursday.

More than twenty Ukrainian drones were shot down in the early hours of Thursday in a new attack on Sevastopol, the peninsula's second-largest city and the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet, Razvozhayev later wrote on Telegram.

The fuel shortage in the city comes amid Ukraine's intensifying campaign of drone and medium- and long-range missile attacks on Russian industrial facilities, which have already forced Russia to cut production, even though it is the world's third-largest oil producer.

“In recent months, we are especially grateful for the medium-range attacks: Russian military logistics throughout the temporarily occupied territory are now within the range of Ukrainian drones,” Zelenskiy said in his speech on Wednesday night.