The peninsula had already been facing fuel supply problems caused by Ukrainian attacks on refineries and supply routes, with fuel now being rationed.
“Everyone is taking three packs. You can’t buy more than that. People are starting to panic,” a woman says by a shelf with buckwheat in a shop in Sevastopol, in a video published on Tuesday by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
“There is basically no rice either,” a male voice continues in a shop in Simferopol, “and almost all the pasta has been bought up. People have gone crazy because of the petrol situation.”
Occupation authorities in Crimea introduced fuel rationing for petrol and diesel as early as late May, after Ukrainian attacks on the main supply route linking Crimea to mainland Russia through occupied eastern Ukraine — together with long-running Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries — disrupted fuel supplies to the annexed peninsula.
In recent days, however, shortages of some food items have also begun to appear because of increased demand. According to to RFE/RL, this is shown by posts on social media.
In recent days, users reported that Jablko supermarkets had introduced rationing for sugar, buckwheat and rice, or that Pud supermarkets in Sevastopol had run out of sugar and salt. There have also been reports of difficulties buying vegetable oil.
RFE/RL reported that the Ukrainian Telegram channel Supernova+ had published information saying that the Dobrostroy supermarket in Sevastopol had introduced sales limits — a maximum of three bottles of vegetable oil and the same number of packs of pasta per purchase.
Photos of half-empty shelves and reports of food shortages are also appearing on local community accounts. One of them, for example, posted a video from a 7M Bezcen store in Simferopol showing almost empty shelves for flour and sugar, RFE/RL continues.
Moscow has admitted that the fuel shortage in Russia was caused by Ukrainian attacks (in Czech)
As the station further reports, citing an unnamed Sevastopol economist and activist with the international movement for the liberation of Crimea, half-empty shelves with certain goods in shops are not so much the result of supply problems as of public panic.
Local authorities say there is no reason to panic and that the peninsula is, according to them, “fully supplied with basic goods,” with some food reportedly produced locally. Not everyone, however, shares this view.
“The people do not trust the authorities’ ability to normalize the situation; they are panicking and stockpiling food. Large chains with their own warehouses and distribution depots are still holding up, but even they are already facing shortages. The authorities are urging them to spread out deliveries from warehouses, so in recent days it has still been possible to buy popular cereals in some places in the morning, but by lunchtime the shelves are already empty. Pensioners have bought up virtually all the sugar,” the station quoted a local activist as saying over the weekend on condition of anonymity.
Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing an unidentified witness, that although some food items had been in short supply in shops in recent days and their sale had been restricted, “the shelves are now stocked and there are no signs of panic.”
Ukraine’s National Resistance Center, however, says that “Russia is gradually losing the ability to supply the occupied peninsula at its usual levels,” and that Crimea is therefore increasingly resembling an island.
“While the occupation administration is concealing the scale of the problem, residents of the peninsula are already feeling the consequences of logistical isolation in their local shops,” Kyiv concludes.
Ukrainian hornets are threatening Russian supplies to Crimea (in Czech)
An article written by Petra Hosenseidlová (CT), initially published on 10 June 2026 at 17:07 (CEST)