Crimea Is Running Out of EVERYTHING… Now Even the Tourists Are GONE

In Sevastopol, petrol is now sold by QR code: 20 litres per vehicle, per week. On the black market, a litre of 92-octane hit 450 rubles in August, up from about 80 before the crisis. Russia's own statistics service recorded a 211% annual rise in Crimean petrol prices in July, against 26% across Russia. After a year of Ukrainian strikes on refineries, bridges, ferries and the Kerch power cable, this is what the squeeze looks like inside occupied Crimea: rationed fuel, purchase limits in shops, hours without power, water by tanker truck, and a tourist season that collapsed.

🎯 Key Points:
• Fuel on rations: Cash sales stopped in June. Fuel is now sold by coupon or QR code, with queues over a kilometre long.
• Prices: Crimean inflation reached 15.8% against about 6% nationally, and food prices rose about 30%. Some residents cross the Kerch bridge to the Kuban just to buy groceries.
• Blackouts: Crimea lost power completely for the first time on July 6. Electricity use fell 42%, and the authorities stopped publishing outage lists.
• Tourism collapse: Bookings fell 58–72% against a forecast 20% rise. 398 restaurants closed in six months, and flat prices fell from 180,000 to 130,000 rubles per square metre.
• Who is leaving: ISW reports tourists, military staff and residents leaving, but no reliable numbers exist. We explain why.

Chapters:
0:00 Fuel by QR code
1:20 What holds Crimea up
3:00 The fuel crisis
5:00 Empty shelves and grocery trips to Russia
8:00 The day Crimea went dark
10:30 Water and hospitals
11:30 The tourist season that collapsed
13:00 How many people have left?
14:00 Silencing the anger
15:30 Moscow's side of the story
17:00 The risks and what to watch next

Orbis Sentinel covers the war from Ukraine's side and shows how we know what we say. If we get something wrong, we correct it in the pinned comment with the date.

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