FUEL SHORTAGES INTENSIFY IN FORMER SOVIET UNION

Soviet fuel shortages are growing worse as they spread across the former U.S.S.R. from one end to the other. Latest reports say the state owned airline monopoly Aeroflot has delayed thousands of flights for lack of jet fuel. Passengers were stranded in airport terminals for days. Tass news agency reported more than half of all Soviet airports were closed for a period during mid-December. No flights were available to Moscow from the Ukraine, the Caucasus area, the Soviet Far East, and some

Dec. 30, 1991

2 min read

Soviet fuel shortages are growing worse as they spread across the former U.S.S.R. from one end to the other.

Latest reports say the state owned airline monopoly Aeroflot has delayed thousands of flights for lack of jet fuel. Passengers were stranded in airport terminals for days.

Tass news agency reported more than half of all Soviet airports were closed for a period during mid-December. No flights were available to Moscow from the Ukraine, the Caucasus area, the Soviet Far East, and some points in Soviet Central Asia.

Moscow newspapers reported fuel and electrical power shortages in Moldavia, the former U.S.S.R.'s extreme southwestern republic, and in Khabarovsk territory, which borders on the Sea of Japan and Sea of Okhotsk.

Soldiers provided tents and other emergency assistance for tens of thousands of residents in the city of Khabarovsk who had no heat, electricity, or gas. Thermal power stations were unable to operate normally because they hadn't been prepared for winter.

Azerbaijan, once the U.S.S.R.'s leading oil producer, and its capital of Baku, a major refining center, feared gasoline shortages.

The Ukraine was unable to harvest a third of its big sugar beet crop because promised gasoline deliveries from the Russian republic had not been made.

Armenia remained without natural gas into December because neighboring Azerbaijan refused to reopen valves on a pipeline carrying gas across its territory from the Russian republic. However, a new pipeline built through the Georgian republic to Armenia provided a small volume of gas to one Armenian district still recovering from earthquake damage.