MOSCOW, August 12. /TASS/. Strikes on Ukrainian ports are causing significant damage to maritime imports, triggering a fuel shortage in Ukraine, said Sergey Kuyun, head of the consulting firm A-95.

"Freight and insurance costs have skyrocketed," he was quoted as saying by the Zerkalo Nedeli news outlet. "It is also worth noting that Romania has halted the export of petroleum products from its refineries, though it has so far permitted transit through the very ports that handle the bulk of fuel shipments from that direction. Industrial consumers have been aggressively buying up fuel in bulk, causing wholesale prices to surge above retail levels. By late July and early August, running out of diesel fuel by the afternoon had become a common occurrence," the expert added.

Since July 22, the Ukrainian ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk, and Yuzhny (the so-called Greater Odessa region) have neither received nor dispatched a single foreign cargo vessel.