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Sweeping Restrictions and Rationing<\/p>\nThe Moscow-appointed head of Russian-occupied Crimea declared a state of emergency Friday following a wave of Ukrainian drone strikes that have crippled the peninsula’s energy grid, triggered widespread blackouts, and forced severe fuel rationing.<\/p>\n
Sergei Aksyonov announced the emergency measures on social media, acknowledging that Crimea’s energy supply “remains difficult” and that he hoped the supply in Sevastopol would be fully restored. The declaration follows months of intensifying Ukrainian bombardments targeting energy infrastructure across Russia and the peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.<\/p>\n
The return of Crimea is one of Kyiv\u2019s stated war aims following Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022, and the peninsula has been hit hard by drone attacks and long queues at \u2060gas stations in recent months.<\/p>\n
Read More on World<\/p>\n
Sweeping Restrictions and Rationing<\/p>\n
In Sevastopol, the home base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, Russian-appointed Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev implemented drastic measures to conserve dwindling fuel and power reserves. Public fuel sales were halted early this week, with remaining supplies strictly reserved for emergency and state vehicles.<\/p>\n
Local authorities have also banned outdoor events, turned off streetlights, scaled back public transit, and suspended summer camps and tourist activities.<\/p>\n
Razvozhayev noted that the emergency declaration would legally allow local business owners to invoke force majeure clauses and permit residents to seek financial compensation for electrical equipment damaged by the erratic power grid.<\/p>\n
Logistics Under Fire<\/p>\n
The power and fuel crisis comes as Kyiv deploys new medium-range drones designed to isolate the peninsula from the Russian mainland. Turning Crimea “into an island” has become a central strategic objective, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said last week.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Ukrainian forces struck targets near the strategic Kerch Bridge\u2014the key logistics link between the Russian region of Krasnodar and Crimea\u2014hitting two oil depots and four radar installations. By Friday, traffic at the bridge ground to a near-halt, with officials reporting a backlog of more than 2,000 vehicles facing waiting times of several hours to cross.<\/p>\n
Strained Governance<\/p>\n
The disruption of fuel supplies threatens Russia’s broader military logistics, which rely heavily on Crimean routes to supply occupying forces heavily entrenched in southern Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Outside observers say the severe civilian rationing points to deeper administrative strain for Moscow. Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope for Ukraine, which helps frontline communities in the war, told Newsweek by suspending civilian fuel sales in Crimea and rationing remaining reserves strictly for state and military entities, \u201cMoscow has unwittingly admitted that it can no longer maintain basic local governance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnable to power the civilian infrastructure, let alone secure the vital supply chains required to sustain its heavily entrenched military footprint, Russia’s administrative and logistical grip on the territory is fracturing under the weight of an escalating humanitarian and operational disaster,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Frances <\/a>Mao, Sam Wilson<\/a> and Anthony Murray<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Moscow-appointed head of Russian-occupied Crimea declared a state of emergency Friday following a wave of Ukrainian drone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[426,25,6,26,1277],"class_list":["post-9973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-crimea","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}