Russia is in the midst of a major fuel crisis

After more than four years of war between Russia and Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a rare admission that the conflict has caused his country a problem. In this case, it is a significant fuel shortage driven by Ukrainian drone strikes that is exacerbating economic strain across Russia, and the issue may not be abated any time soon.

‘Certain deficit’

Putin has very rarely acknowledged that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to challenges. But his country is now facing a “certain deficit” of fuel, the Russian president said in an interview with state television. Russians are “well aware that problems for ⁠drivers and for businesses persist,” Putin also told his senior officials of the petroleum industry, according to Al Jazeera. “Unfortunately, there are still queues at petrol stations too.”

The shortage largely stems from Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. Russia must “reduce to a minimum the impact of terrorist attacks on our civilian targets and infrastructure,” Putin told his senior officials. Ukraine has “stepped up attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months, hitting Russia’s crude oil,” said Al Jazeera. The attacks have led to significant fuel deficits; the “amount of crude oil Russia processed into fuel in June was down 25% from a year ago, to 3.95 million barrels per day — the lowest level in over two decades,” said Gary Peach, an oil markets analyst at Energy Intelligence, to The Associated Press.

While Ukraine has been utilizing drones for a while, what makes the current onslaught different is that Ukraine has “clearly scaled up the quantity of their drones and the quality of their drones,” Christina Harward, an expert at the Institute for the Study of War, said to Deutsche Welle. Ukraine has “improved the range of their drones and, for the past couple of months, they’ve also been undertaking an effort to identify and destroy Russian air defense systems.”

‘The situation is not very good’

The fuel shortages have led to social and financial unrest in many parts of Russia. The “lines are growing at Russian gas stations — and so is the frustration and uncertainty” as the deficits drag on and oil prices go up, said the AP. “I think the situation is not very good,” one motorist waiting in line told the AP. Rationing of fuel has been implemented in numerous cities with “hourslong queues of cars snaking beside roads.”

These struggles have been highlighted across social media, with one post reportedly showing farmers “struggling to afford fuel for harvest, while another describes a farmer having to drive his combine harvester to a regular gas station after he was not allowed to fill a can,” said Reuters. Some Russian drivers have also started to “crowdsource maps and trade tips about which stations have fuel and shorter lines,” and “online searches for ‘how to siphon fuel’ rose to more than ⁠9,300” in June from just 697 a month earlier.

And it doesn’t appear the crisis is going anywhere, as “half of Russia’s 83 regions are now reporting shortages,” said the Center for European Policy Analysis. For now, Russia has “enough fuel for the army, key industries, and agriculture — but everywhere else the choice is between paying more and waiting longer,” and it comes as a Gallup survey found that “60% of Russians interviewed between March and May said their local economic conditions are getting worse.”