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Petrol sales in Russian-occupied Crimea will be suspended from Sunday morning as a fuel crisis deepens on the peninsula.
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“Today, June 21, starting at 9:00 AM, fuel sales at Crimean gas stations will be suspended for cash, non-cash payments, and vouchers for individuals and legal entities,” Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-backed governor of Crimea, announced in a post on Telegram.
“Fuel will be sold only to government agencies that ensure the functioning and security of the Republic of Crimea,” he added, while also asking residents to remain calm.
Kyiv’s targeting of Russia’s energy industry has sparked a major fuel crisis in Crimea, with long queues for petrol stations and limited supply.
Ukraine has increasingly attacked Russian oil facilities in recent months, striking refineries, terminals and depots, as well as fuel trucks bound for Crimea.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces had hit facilities “on both sides of the Crimean Bridge,” including “maritime logistics used to transport oil in the Krasnodar region and an oil depot in temporarily occupied Kerch”.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s defence minister, has said Kyiv is attempting to isolate Crimea using drone attacks.
“Logistics are being cut off,” he said in an interview with the YouTube channel Pressing.
“It looks like, in the near future, Crimea will turn into an island,” he added. “This could lead to some very unexpected consequences for the Russians”.
It comes as Russian attacks on eastern Ukraine killed three people and injured 22 others, local authorities said on Sunday.
One person died and nine were wounded following a wave of attacks on three districts of Dnipropetrovsk, according to Oleksandr Ganzha, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration.
Two businesses were also struck in the region of Poltava on Saturday, Poltava Regional Military Administration head Vitaliy Dyakivnych said.
Two people died in the attack and 13 were injured, per Dyakivnych.
