Ukraine has been forced to seek alternative fuel supplies as the Russian invasion hits its traditional supply routes, leaving the war-torn country with acute petrol shortages.
A Russian naval blockade has prevented imports from Azerbaijan and Romania via the Black Sea, while Belarus, previously a major supplier, is no longer delivering fuel after its president Alexander Lukashenko let his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin use his country as a base to attack Kyiv.
Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said the war-torn country was now getting fuel “anywhere we can get it”.
“All of our imports are from the EU,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “We only used to use the nearest countries and ports to Ukraine in
Poland and Romania, now we are importing it from Belgium, the Netherlands.”
As many as 230 fuel trucks are now crossing into Ukraine daily, while new agreements with the EU and Poland are aimed at simplifying customs and border control procedures which have left trucks lined up for miles.
Air strikes in April destroyed Ukraine’s only major oil refinery in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine which accounted for about 40 percent of total petrol and diesel supplies, as well as several fuel depots across the country as part of a Russian attempt to hit the Ukrainian army supply routes.
The fuel shortages have shut down petrol stations across the country and threaten to leave drivers stranded.
Filling up requires waiting in line for hours or navigating the card system petrol stations have introduced to ration fuel at fixed prices.
Some Ukrainians are turning to a thriving online black market run by OLX, the Ukrainian equivalent of Craigslist, and featuring hundreds of classified advertisements selling ration cards, petrol canisters or even used water bottles filled with fuel.
Before the war, Ukraine only imported 5 percent of its fuel through its borders with Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania, according to Rostyslav Shurma, deputy head of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office. Now the figure is 100 percent. Kyiv has already increased capacity at its EU borders tenfold, he said and wants to double that further still.