The largest Russian gas station chains have stopped selling fuel to private customers in Crimea and the Krasnodar Krai. This applies to all gas stations where high-quality gasoline was previously available — Gazprom, Lukoil, and Rosneft. Currently, the only places to fill up are unbranded gas stations; the quality of the fuel they sell has always been questionable. However, even here, there are numerous artificial restrictions. Gasoline is dispensed either into the car’s tank or into a 20-liter metal can. They will not fill a plastic container, even if it meets all storage and transportation requirements. 

As a result, there has been a crazy demand for canisters. Metal ones cost 5,000 rubles or more, which is 10 times more expensive than at the beginning of the year. Prices for plastic canisters reach 4,000 rubles. Popular marketplaces have started offering canisters on installment plans — all for the convenience of shoppers. Smart Crimeans have even turned what was once considered trash into a commodity: tin cans from oil, and containers from primers and paints at home improvement stores. Prices for this junk start at 500 rubles. Supply is driven by demand: hundreds of thousands of people need not only fuel supplies but also containers in which to store them. 

That said, gas station owners are also showing remarkable ingenuity. According to our sources, in Stary Krym, Sudak, and Kefe (Feodosia), fuel is available at all gas stations, but selling it is prohibited. On June 29, some of them began selling gasoline for 175 rubles per liter (the official price remains 69–72 rubles). However, within just a few hours, “the shops closed”: it is much more profitable for sellers to continue selling fuel through intermediaries, since farmers and private entrepreneurs are willing to pay 300–400 rubles to avoid going bankrupt.

There is currently no shortage of food or medicine — the occupying authorities are bringing them in because their top priority is to prevent panic. But prices continue to creep upward. Few people doubt anymore that the price increases will be limited to a 1.5-fold rise for grains, oil, and flour; most likely, prices for non-perishable goods will double. 

The import of other goods into Crimea has stopped because logistics costs eat up all potential profits. Wildberry, Ozon, and other marketplaces charge as much as 400,000 rubles — equivalent to 5,000 euros — to transport a single truckload from Moscow to Crimea. However, there are still not enough people willing to take on the job. Drivers are refusing to take the “Rostov–Mariupol–Melitopol–Crimea” route, which has already been dubbed the “truckers’ mass grave” due to Ukrainian artillery fire. 

The situation is no better in the Krasnodar Region. The main fuel supply route to Crimea has itself become a no-go zone. The region’s two largest oil depots — the Novorossiysk depot, owned by Rosneft, and the Krasnodar depot, owned by Transneft — are under constant air attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.