Russian Fuel Crisis Driving Discontent

Russian Fuel Crisis Driving Discontent

Executive Summary:

• Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia’s oil infrastructure have severely damaged fuel production, with gasoline production reportedly at 65 percent of average summer consumption. The resulting shortages have caused hours-long gas lines, station closures, and at least two reported deaths.
• The fuel crisis threatens Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic legitimacy by increasing prices, damaging the agricultural sector, creating logistics issues and shortages of goods, and raising general concerns about the sustainability of Russia’s war economy.
• Russia’s federal system limits avenues for public protest regarding this crisis, as regional governors are effectively appointed by the Kremlin and opposition figures are excluded from elections. With 11 governors and 39 regional parliaments up for election in September, genuine political competition is near impossible.

Russia was the third largest producer of crude oil in 2025 (OPEC, accessed July 21). Systematic Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries over the past year, as far east as Omsk in Siberia, however, have significantly undermined its fuel infrastructure. According to industry sources, gasoline production in Russia is at 65 percent of the average summer consumption. This shortage has led to massive, hours-long queues at gas stations, and many private stations are simply shutting down (see EDM, July 10, 14; The Moscow Times, July 10). There have already been at least two deaths of elderly Russians waiting in gas lines (The Moscow Times, July 16).

The fuel crisis is generating deeper economic problems. The scarcity of fuel is disrupting the movement of goods between regions, causing other shortages that lead to higher prices, increasing social tension. Officials are calling for Russians to “be patient,” but these calls are not working, especially for those who live in non-urban settings who rely on gasoline to reach their work, medical care, and shops (Radio Svoboda, July 20). Some regions have banned the supply of gasoline in canisters, leaving residents unable to fuel generators or use chainsaws for firewood. Several regions are complaining that they cannot harvest their crops due to fuel shortages (The Moscow Times, July 14). By autumn, Russia risks a food crisis.

Economist Igor Lipsits believes that Russia does not have the capacity to repair oil refineries destroyed by Ukrainian drones (Radio Svoboda, July 16). Some analysts believe that the fuel crisis is capable of destroying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entire war economy (The Moscow Times, July 16; see Strategic Snapshot, July 17). An end to Russia’s war against Ukraine would halt Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries, allowing them to resume production. Most Russians, however, are not drawing this logical conclusion as a way to end the crisis, at least in public. Kremlin narratives continue to insist on escalating its war against Ukraine, demanding victory. 

The fuel crisis will be the most serious test for the Russian government since Soviet times. In Putin’s early years, Kremlin narratives pointed to pervasive food shortages of the Soviet era and the 1990s to consolidate support for his rule. The Kremlin claimed that Putin ensured an abundance of goods in the first two decades of his rule. This economic improvement, however, was primarily driven by the sharp rise in global oil prices in the early 2000s, something that former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev and former President of Russia Boris Yeltsin could only dream of. Now that Ukraine has successfully hit all 10 of Russia’s largest oil refineries, Russia’s petrostate prosperity could collapse.

The refrigerator may finally triumph over the television as material reality increasingly undermines Kremlin narratives. The “social contract” of early Putinism was that citizens stayed out of politics and, in exchange, the government would provide Russians with a more or less tolerable standard of living. Today, hundreds of thousands of dead Russians make Putin’s politics impossible to ignore (French Institute of International Relations, February 9). If, on top of that, long Soviet and Yeltsin-era lines for basic goods begin to form in modern Russian cities, the regime will be more likely to collapse.

It is unclear what collapse would look like in the Russian Federation because independent regional entities are needed for decentralization. In 1990, most of the Soviet Union’s republics elected new legislative bodies, Supreme Soviets, which eventually declared independence, guiding the transition between Soviet rule and statehood. Today, however, all the governors of Russia’s regions are appointed by the Kremlin—just like the “First Secretaries of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” in the Soviet republics. It is doubtful that these handpicked leaders would attempt independence from the Kremlin. Politically and financially, they are completely dependent on Moscow. There are no real regional parliaments—the same party, United Russia, dominates everywhere, and regional political parties are banned. Fuel from all Russian regions, meanwhile, is being transported to Moscow because the Kremlin is striving to maintain social order in the capital (The Moscow Times, July 16). 

On September 20, Russia will hold another unified voting day. In addition to State Duma deputies, 11 governors and 39 regional parliaments will be “elected.” It is impossible to call this spectacle a real election. The Kremlin, under various absurd pretexts, is already banning any opposition forces from participating in these elections (Radio Svoboda, July 16). For example, in the Republic of Karelia, popular political activist Emilia Slabunova, a member of the Yabloko party, was disqualified from running in the elections. The formal pretext was “displaying extremist symbols” (Kommersant, April 21). She merely posted a photo of herself with Alexei Navalny on social media in 2020. Even after his death, Navalny remains a “banned extremist” in Russia. Boris Nadezhdin, an independent politician who attempted to run for Russian president back in 2024 under anti-war slogans, was also disqualified from the Moscow region elections. The Kremlin declared him a “foreign agent,” which completely bars him from running in any elections, on July 10 (Radio Svoboda, July 16). If the Russian authorities exclude any legitimate, parliamentary expression of protest sentiments, citizens are only left with revolutionary means of change as the economic crisis mounts.