Firefighters working to extinguish a blaze at an oil depot in the Kursk region. Photo / Getty Images
At petrol stations across Russia, drivers wait in long queues. Fuel prices have rocketed, rationing has started and panic is spreading.
In the past five weeks, fuel shortages have swept from Russia’s far east to Moscow as a result of one of Ukraine’s most successful campaigns of the war – long-range drone strikes targeting oil refineries.
The attacks have reduced Russian oil refining by almost a fifth on certain days and cut exports from key ports, pushing Moscow closer to reducing oil production.
Ukraine has also been attacking oil depots, pipelines and pumping stations with a vengeance.
With Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers seemingly bypassing sanctions, Ukraine this month struck the Primorsk oil port in the Leningrad region, Russia’s largest oil terminal on the Baltic Sea – the final station of the Baltic Pipeline System and a crucial hub for Russia’s maritime exports.
Kyiv is hoping its aerial offensive will weaken Russia’s ability to finance its war machine, stir domestic discontent and force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian drones attacked Salavat, one of Russia’s largest petrochemical complexes, more than 965km from the front line, for the second time in less than a week.
The next day Moscow announced it would extend its ban on fuel exports until the end of the year and introduce a partial ban on diesel exports to protect domestic supplies.
Although Alexander Novak, Russia’s deputy prime minister, has tried to play it down, experts say officials cannot ignore the escalating crisis as endless online videos of queues of cars illustrate the desperation of motorists.
“Domestically, the Ukrainian attacks are having a big impact,” said Luke Wickenden, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent environment-minded organisation.
“The drones are particularly targeting facilities responsible for fuelling domestic supply, and when you combine these with increased demand, given the looming winter, fuel shortages are being seen across Russia, tightening already-stressed domestic balances.”
Ukraine began intensifying Russian energy infrastructure attacks in August, targeting key refineries, pipelines and export terminals.
Its aim is to strike at the heart of the Russian economy by disrupting oil and gas production, which accounts for a quarter of GDP.
Donald Trump has now toughened his stance on the Kremlin and believes choking off Russia’s oil revenue could force Putin to the negotiating table.
The US President is demanding that Europe completely stop buying Russian energy and punishing countries that do, floating 100% tariffs on China and India if they do not wean themselves off it.
At least 16 out of Russia’s 38 refineries have been hit since the start of August in large-scale and coordinated waves, often repeatedly hitting the same facilities to inflict maximum damage.
Russia’s far east and occupied Crimea were the first to suffer petrol shortages in August, followed by the Volga region and southern and central Russia.
In a number of regions, fuel is being rationed, with customers only allowed 10 to 20 litres each or only diesel being sold, according to the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper.
Most recently, the shortages have begun to hit Moscow, bringing disruption to the capital that has largely been spared by disruptions from the war.
Citizens seem oblivious as to why shortages have come about.
“We haven’t had any 92-octane petrol for almost a day, or even a week,” said one petrol station employee in central Moscow. “No one knows why. It’s just gone. They’ve banned us from filling canisters.”
In Crimea, authorities said that half of petrol stations had run out.
“The situation is critical – many stations have closed completely,” one resident told Meduza, an independent Russian outlet.
Crimean Wind, a prominent pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel, reported that Sevastopol, the largest city on the peninsula, was almost completely out of petrol.
“There are no lines for hay yet, and the prices for horses and donkeys are stable,” the channel said.
Alexander Novak said there was “indeed a slight shortage of petroleum products” but this was “being covered by accumulated reserves”.
He conceded, however, that September and October would probably be “difficult”.
What happens after that will depend on whether Ukraine can sustain such a high level of attacks and how quickly Russia can recover.
“The general consensus at the moment is that its oil exports will remain stable, but fragile,” said Wickenden.
Though causing a headache for the Kremlin, say analysts, the situation is still far off from spiralling into a crisis that would derail Russia’s economy or the war machine.
“This is a major source of frustration for Moscow, as it acknowledges that Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries have had an impact on the economy,” Emily Ferris, a Russia analyst at RUSI, a London-based think tank, told The Telegraph.
However, she argued that despite this it was unlikely to be what pushes the Kremlin into peace talks.
“The situation is not critical. Russia has enough oil and gas reserves, and financial reserves, to push through this inconvenience, and the goal of subjugating Ukraine is much more of a valued prize.
At the UN General Assembly this week, Trump changed his tune on Russia by saying that it was facing “big economic problems” and risked losing all its occupied land to Ukraine.
However, there was no sign he would yield to the demands of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian President, and follow through on heavy sanctions on Moscow.
The Trump administration has so far opted for punitive trade tariffs to drain Russia’s war chest and pressure Europe into stopping importing Russian oil and gas.
In response, the EU this week announced it would accelerate its plans to end Russian gas imports by the end of 2026, rather than 2027.
The move comes as part of a sanctions package intended to decrease Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels, raise the cost of its war in Ukraine and put pressure on Putin to end the war.
Hungary and Slovakia are expected to fiercely oppose the package, which requires backing from all members, yet Trump has put pressure on the pro-Putin Hungarian leader Viktor Orban to halt the imports.
The Russian economy has so far withstood a barrage of Western sanctions but is now slowing down – struggling under the weight of tighter sanctions and high war expenditure and facing high inflation and soaring interest rates.
But as Zelenskyy said this month, “the most effective sanctions – the ones that work the fastest – are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots”.
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