Russia’s naval blockade has prevented imports from Azerbaijan and Romania via the Black Sea, while Belarus, a former major supplier, is no longer delivering fuel after President Alexander Lukashenko allowed his Russian counterpart Boston to use his Russian counterpart to attack Kyiv. Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said the war-torn country was now getting fuel “wherever we can get it”. “All our imports come from the EU,” he told the Financial Times in an interview. “We used only the nearest countries and ports in Ukraine to Poland and Romania, now we import it from Belgium, the Netherlands.” Up to 230 fuel trucks now pass through Ukraine daily, and new agreements with the EU and Poland aim to simplify customs and border control procedures that leave trucks in line for miles. Air raids in April destroyed Ukraine’s only major oil refinery in Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, which accounted for about 40 percent of total gasoline and diesel supplies, as well as several fuel depots across the country trying to supply routes of the Ukrainian army. Fuel shortages have shut down gas stations across the country and threaten to leave drivers stranded. Filling requires waiting in line for hours or navigating the card system introduced by gas stations with portions at fixed prices. Some Ukrainians are turning to a thriving online black market run by OLX, Ukraine’s Craigslist counterpart, and with hundreds of classified ads selling diet cards, gas cans, or even used bottles of fuel. Prior to the war, Ukraine imported only 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 percentage is 100 percent. Kyiv has already doubled the capacity of its border with the EU, he said, and wants to double it even more. The Ukrainian government initially defended price controls, which it said prevented profits in time of war, but then abandoned fuel prices in May after some sellers complained that their measures had led to losses at their service stations. . Alexander Kats, who owns a chain of petrol stations in central Ukraine, is struggling to find enough fuel to sustain it. “The situation is crazy. “Just crazy,” he said. A few days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, Katz watched helplessly as an airstrike hit a fuel depot just south of Kiev. With emergency services flooded, the flames raged for several days, burning about 10,000 tons of fuel and sending dense clouds of black smoke into the sky. The rush to import more fuel from Europe has already mitigated some of the shortages following a peak in May. Serhiy Kuyun, head of energy consulting firm A-95, said the number of diesel fuel suppliers had more than doubled in the past month, although propane-butane and gasoline supplies were growing more slowly. In June, Ukraine will import up to 600,000 tonnes of fuel from Europe – a tenfold increase from the 60,000 tonnes it imported in March. As supply increases, Ukraine has eased restrictions on fuel purchases from 10 to 20 liters per person. Kubrakov said he hoped the situation would stabilize by the autumn when Kyiv signed more long-term contracts with foreign suppliers. The global effort to help Ukraine export grain after Russia cut off its main supply routes in the Black Sea also helps the country import more fuel, he added, because trains and trucks carrying fuel use the same routes.

European banks, however, are reluctant to finance any deals to supply more fuel because of the risks of war, according to Kuyun. Ukraine’s neighbors are also unable to meet growing demand. To curb rising regional wholesale prices, Hungary cut fuel sales at a discount to locals last month. High demand is likely to remain as long as Ukraine needs to continue to fuel its war effort, Katz said. “Tanks, artillery, trucks and logistics must be imported,” he said. “And you have to be able to fill it. “There is so much you can do in one day.”