Gas Crisis Increasingly Serious Political Problem for Putin

Gas Crisis Increasingly Serious Political Problem for Putin

Executive Summary:

• Gas shortages across the Russian Federation that Ukrainian drone attacks have brought on are rapidly acquiring a political dimension despite the Kremlin’s assumption that Russians will weather this latest challenge with their usual forbearance.
• Russians are angry not only because the Kremlin has not protected them but also because it is protecting those closest to Moscow first. Elites are using the situation to press their own agendas, and the crisis now has an international dimension as Russia’s neighbors react.
• That does not mean the Duma vote will not go as the Kremlin wants—Russian President Vladimir Putin can and will get the results he wants—or that there will be any repeat of the 2011 protests. It does mean support for Putin will continue to fall, even among Russian elites. 

Gas shortages in Russia that Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries have brought on are rapidly acquiring a political dimension. This is the case despite the Kremlin’s assumption that Russians will weather this latest challenge with their usual forbearance and a change that is especially and immediately serious given that Duma elections are scheduled for September (see EDM; Vottak.tv, July 10). Unsurprisingly, Russians are angry not only because Moscow has not protected them from an attack by a country it says Russian forces are defeating. The regime is also taking care of its own by giving them greater access to gas than the population as a whole has, thus violating the widespread Russian conviction that all citizens should share in such hardships as was the case in Soviet times when the children of the Stalinist elite fought on the front lines (iStories, July 2; Novaya Gazeta Europe, July 11; Echo; Telegram/@v_pastukhov, July 12).

As a result, Russian elites both at the center and in the regions are using this situation to press their own agendas. This includes using mini-refineries that would give regions more power or change the balance of power among various elite groups in the capital (Regcomment.ru, July 9; Svobodnaya Pressa, July 14). Alongside these developments, the gas crisis inside the Russian Federation has now acquired an international dimension as its neighbors do the same, with some annoyed by gas tourism and others by Moscow’s demand for help (The Times of Central Asia, June 26; Vottak.tv, July 4). Even more important is that most of the governments of these countries are now including the reality that the Russian state is not as overwhelmingly powerful as they have assumed into their own calculations (Siberian Economist, July 6).

These developments do not mean the Duma vote will not go as the Kremlin wants. Russian President Vladimir Putin can and will get the results he wants. It also does not mean that there will be any repeat of the 2011 protests with some move to oust the Kremlin leader, let alone a revolution, something even the regime’s most committed opponents acknowledge is not the case (Vottak.tv, July 10; United Resistance Front, July 12). It does mean, however, that popular support for Putin will continue to fall (The Barents Observer, July 11). Russians will react accordingly now that they can see he is not the only possible leader and thus will be more willing to test the limits of the permissible. That will create new problems for Putin. He will most likely respond to these problems with more repression. Such an approach, however effective in the past, may now backfire, especially from the unintended consequences of actions such as putting more guns in the hands of the population through the war (Radio Svoboda; Govorit NeMoskva, July 10; Echo, July 10 [1], [2]).

The rapidly spreading effects of gasoline shortages, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have brought on and polls showing Putin no longer has the overwhelming support he has claimed have dominated the attention of the Russian people in recent weeks. Many assume they are interrelated (see EDM, July 10; The Barents Observer, July 11). Russians are angry that their government cannot defend them against an enemy the Kremlin has insisted Moscow is defeating. They are even angrier that the Putin regime is taking care of its closest supporters, ensuring that they get gas when much of the population cannot. That is a powerful and potentially explosive mix, especially during an election season, and one that some elites are now using to advance their own goals.

Perhaps the clearest and less widely recognized case of this is many governors’ campaign to restrict the sale of gasoline to their own residents and to set up mini-refineries on their territories so that attacks on the centralized refineries will not have the same effect on their people (Regcomment.ru, July 9; Govorit NeMoskva, July 10). Such suggestions fly in the face of Soviet and Russian efforts to use oil and gas to hold the country together. In Soviet times, Moscow did not allow the non-Russian union republics to build their own refineries or gas and oil storage facilities lest that give them the ability to act more independently. Putin has not changed that. The governors, even those he has appointed, see a chance in the current crisis to gain more power (Regcomment.ru; Crisis Piggy Bank, July 9). As some observers have already pointed out, this is the first but hardly the last such effort regional and republic heads will do if they believe that the center has less support and power than it once did (Altyn-orda, July 7; Echo, July 10).

Such proposals suggest that in Russia today, “there is now a place for real politics” even if it is not so publicly expressed as would be the case in a democracy, according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a Russian scholar at the University of Bremen (Vottak.tv, July 10). That development is forcing the Kremlin to consider options it would not have done earlier and to take steps that may not be in its long-term interests, such as allowing Russians to have weapons in the hopes they will shoot down drones. It is unclear whether that will work, but it may contribute to a rise in violent crime (Echo, July 10; Window on Eurasia, July 11). Such missteps reflect these new politics, but Mitrokhin argues that the Kremlin could adopt one of four strategies to protect itself in this election season.

First, he suggests, and this would be “the most obvious step,” Moscow could seek to conclude an agreement with Ukraine “to stop strikes on large infrastructure facilities” such as refineries “if Zelenskyy, with the mediation of Trump, will do so.” Second, Putin could “declare a state of emergency that would result in the legal cancellation of the elections,” a move that would solve the problems but would push them out in the more distant future. Third, Mitrokhin continues, Moscow could expand its program of producing “dirty” gasoline with cheap additives, something that is already sparking concerns about pollution and damage to vehicles and limiting the possibility of future exports (Meduza, July 2; Readovka, July 3). Finally, fourth, the Putin regime could announce that it is transitioning to a real military-based mobilization economy, something that would further depress the decline in the standard of living of the population and require more repression to hold it in check (Vottak.tv, July 10).

The scope of such possible changes underscores just how political the gas crisis and Moscow’s approach to it have become. To be sure, the systemic parties are not talking about this in public because doing so would still be politically suicidal. Real politics, however, is returning to Russia because of the combination of a gas crisis caused by Ukrainian drone attacks and of Putin’s falling poll numbers. This trend reflects popular unhappiness not just about the shortage of gasoline at the pump but about the way Putin is running the country. That does not mean he is about to be ousted or his regime replaced, but it does mean that the regime in Russia is beginning to change in important ways and will need to adapt to new realities (see EDM, November 18, 2025, April 7, June 4, July 7).