Ukraine strikes trigger fuel crisis in Crimea

Zelenskiy says Ukraine can hit Russian logistics across the region

KYIV:

Drivers in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, were confronted with gasoline rationing on Monday after Ukrainian drone attacks constricted road supplies across south-eastern Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Ukraine's military was now capable of hitting Russian logistics throughout occupied areas of Ukraine and had created shortages of fuel in Crimea and other Russian-held regions.

"Our troops are now capable of reaching Russian military logistics across virtually the entire depth of the temporarily occupied territories," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"In practice, there are almost no safe roads left for the occupier in the south and east of our country."

Ukraine in recent months has stepped up strikes on medium-range targets as well as others many hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine's borders, focusing on Russia's oil industry.

Zelenskiy said that from January to May, Ukrainian forces had struck 15 Russian oil refineries.

Ukraine's actions, he said, provided "further proof that there will be no peaceful times for the occupier on our land."

"This is also reflected in shortages, above all fuel shortages in Crimea and in other areas that remain under occupation."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Ukraine had "opened a new page in a series of crimes with its strikes on a dormitory in northeastern Luhansk region and on an apartment building in a Russian-held part of Ukraine's Kherson region.

"Consciously committing the most serious crimes against children and teenagers at the teachers college in Starobilsk, and now in Henichesk, the Kyiv leadership has decided to open a new page in the series of their crimes," Russian news agencies quoted Putin as telling a meeting devoted to the aftermath of the attack on the dormitory in Starobilsk.

The drone strike in the Russian-held town of Starobilsk killed 21 people in late May, while a drone attack on an apartment building in the Russian-held town of Henichesk on Sunday killed one child and injured 11.