Kyiv (dpa-AFX) – The Ukrainian Minister of Economic Affairs Julia Swyrydenko has promised an early solution to the acute fuel problem. “Over the course of the next seven days, the deficit will be eliminated,” Svyrydenko promised in a post on Facebook on Friday. The petrol station operators had bought enough quantities in Western Europe and only had to bring them to the Ukraine.
The background to the lack of fuel is the targeted Russian attacks on fuel depots and the refinery in Kremenchuk. The aim is to bring the Ukrainian economy to a standstill. The media showed images of miles of queues in front of gas stations in the capital, Kyiv. The city administration had asked the people of Kiev to refrain from private trips. A reporter from the German Press Agency reported on Thursday that fewer than a dozen gas stations were open along the more than 300-kilometer route between the western Ukrainian city of Rivne and Kyiv.
More than two months ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an attack on Ukraine. Fuel deliveries from Russia and Belarus (Belarus) were then stopped immediately. According to media reports, Ukraine was only about 14 percent self-sufficient for diesel and about half for petrol. Fuel was also imported from Lithuania and Romania./ast/DP/jha