Drivers in Russian-occupied Crimea who paid in advance for gasoline can’t use their coupons—and at the peninsula’s largest station network, they can’t get their money back either.
It is the newest turn in a fuel crisis that Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries and supply routes have driven since spring: the occupation has gone from rationing fuel to sitting on residents’ prepaid cash, with no date for when the fuel returns or the money is refunded.
The two biggest chains, TES and ATAN, stopped fueling ordinary customers on prepaid coupons and cards in late May, serving only emergency and life-support vehicles under an order from Crimea’s Russian-installed leader Sergey Aksyonov, Sevastopol news outlet ForPost reported.
ATAN is at least letting holders swap or reclaim expired coupons. TES, the largest network, is not: it is keeping the cash, citing a law that allows returns only within 14 days of purchase. In Sevastopol, TES coupons can be reclaimed through a feedback form; in Crimea, they cannot.
Ukrainian strikes have driven the occupation from rationing fuel to sitting on residents’ prepaid cash.
Holding the cash has a legal name
A Russian consumer-rights lawyer says that reasoning is wrong. Artur Badalov told the outlet that the 14-day rule covers goods a buyer didn’t like, not fuel that was paid for but never delivered. The provision that applies, Article 487 of Russia’s Civil Code, entitles anyone who prepaid to either the product or a refund. Refusing both, he said, is unjust enrichment.
TES says its coupons are open-ended and that, once the market stabilizes, it will honor them and meet every obligation. It did not say when.
The shortage has run for months, driven by Ukrainian strikes on refineries and on the sea and land routes into Crimea—part of a wider counter-logistics campaign.
ISW: Ukraine has opened a new phase of Crimea’s isolation by hunting seaborne fuel tankers
Sevastopol went to QR-code rationing in early June; residents have since driven to the Russian mainland or bought from resellers at a markup, and often from scammers. On 27 July, even as coupon-holders stayed frozen out, the peninsula’s energy ministry advertised fuel back on free sale at 61 stations for premium gasoline and 56 for diesel.
But fuel is not the only strain. Also on 27 July, water was cut across Simferopol, Feodosia, Alushta, and other districts, which authorities blamed on grid failures; Ukraine has hit Crimea’s power system repeatedly.
Vladimir Putin ordered officials on 9 July to arrange fuel subsidies for Crimea and Sevastopol; Aksyonov has floated a subsidy of about 85 rubles ($1.10) a liter.
Not everyone is keeping a straight face. On 26 July, Oleg Tsarev, a former Ukrainian lawmaker turned Russian collaborator, invited Russia’s energy ministry—and the officials responsible for its air defense—to relocate to occupied Crimea. Easier to fix problems, he wrote, when you can look out the window and see them.
