Starting in August 2025, increased Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries during the Russo-Ukrainian War caused widespread damage and a significant decrease in production of refined products across the Russian oil industry, leading to a fuel crisis in the country. The crisis escalated in the middle of 2026, with Russian-controlled Crimea declaring a state of emergency in June and banning fuel sales.
By July 2026, most of Russia's regions were experiencing fuel restrictions, directly affecting 50 million people, approximately 35% of the Russian population. Russia suspended civilian shipping through the Don–Azov Shipping Canal and the Kerch Strait following concentrated attacks on oil tankers in the Sea of Azov and surrounding anchorages. A decree was signed allowing certain oil refineries to lower their production quality standards from Euro-5 gasoline to Euro-3 gasoline until the end of the year.
Background
There have been several gasoline crises in Russia since the 2010s started, most recently in 2023. As part of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Ukrainian drones had occasionally targeted Russian refineries since 2024, causing expense and inconvenience.
Ukrainian drone strikes in 2025
Waryear Number of strikes onRussia's oil facilitiesIn yearCumulative 1st 3 3 2nd 13 16 3rd 92 108 4th 138 246 Feb '26–Jun '26 59 305
According to a 25 June 2026 analysis by CNN, Ukraine had struck Russian oil facilities over 300 times since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022. Only three strikes were performed in the first year of the war (February 2022 to February 2023), with an additional 13 in the second year. Ukraine's deep strike campaign on Russia's oil facilities and other strategic targets was officially launched in early 2024, with a few dozen pilotless aircraft per month. It was not until the third year that Ukraine's attacks on Russia's oil infrastructure really took off, with a cumulative total of 108 hits after three years of war, 246 after four years, and a total of 305 strikes when including 24 February 2022 to 25 June 2026.
A substantial increase in targeted attacks by Ukraine on Russian energy infrastructure began in the second half of 2025. According to media reports, Ukraine carried out over a dozen drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure between 2 and 24 August, the majority of them striking facilities in Ryazan Oblast and Volgograd Oblast in southwestern Russia. On 27 August, Ukrainian media reported that the Ryazan refinery, one of the main fuel arteries to Moscow, had been struck by a powerful explosion. Boris Aronstein, an independent oil and gas analyst, said that the Ukrainian drone strikes had caused "the most severe crisis in recent years", adding that the size, coordination and repeated waves of the drones makes Russia unable to repair the refineries before the next attack occurs. According to Reuters, Crimea and Russia's far east were the first territories to experience gasoline shortages in August.
In September 2025, Reuters reported that Russia was seeing certain fuel grade shortages, with the reduced refinery runs caused by the drone attacks and high borrowing costs leading to private filling stations being unable to stockpile fuel according to retailers and traders. According to Reuters, the attacks on some days had reduced Russian oil refining by almost a fifth, and cut exports from key ports. According to five retailers and traders in the Russian fuel market during September, problems from the shortages started to emerge in the Volga river region and in southern and central Russia as well. On 29 September, Forbes reported that the issues with fuel had worsened quickly and spread across much of the country, with rising prices, rationing, long queues and pumps running dry in some cases.
In October 2025, BBC Verify and BBC Russian reported that Ukrainian drone attacks reached a record level of 14 refineries targeted in August, while eight had been targeted in September and 12 in August, and that 21 out of Russia's 38 large refineries had been hit since January 2025. Meduza reported that some gas stations were shutting down altogether due to being unable to raise prices because of antitrust restrictions. In Crimea, Russian occupation officials limited gasoline sales to 20 liters per customer and imposed price caps.
2026 escalation of crisis
First wave: May – late July 2026
The first wave of fuel shortages in Russia began in May 2026, and had spread to all regions of Russia by July 2026.
In the middle of 2026, Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on key Russian energy infrastructure resulted in an expansion of the crisis, with Politico saying that two-thirds of Russia's regions were reporting fuel supply issues, affecting millions of Russians as well as threatening businesses. In Crimea, a state of emergency was declared, with authorities banning all fuel sales. The Moscow Times said that the fuel shortage also resulted in a disruption of Crimea's tourism industry.
On 2 July 2026, Novaya Gazeta Europe estimated that the fuel crisis had spread to al least 78 of the 83 internationally recognised regions of the Russian Federation (including republics, krais, (autonomous) oblasts and okrugs, and federal cities), plus occupied Crimea and Sevastopol; only 5 regions of Russia had not reported a fuel crisis so far. In 38 of those regions, officials had imposed restrictions on gasoline sales, some in individual cities, others in entire regions. Three regions had gone as far as declaring a state of emergency: Penza Oblast, Irkutsk Oblast, and Zabaykalsky Krai; occupied Crimea and Sevastopol had already done so on 26 June 2026.
On 6 July, Ukrainian drones hit Russia's largest oil refinery and top producer of gasoline, the Omsk refinery, with two industry sources saying the refinery had halted operations the next day. The Saratov oil refinery also halted operations soon after a 7 July strike.
According to Russian Forbes, 54% of all oil refineries had been damaged. In July 2026, Russia's daily petrol output declined to 75,000~80,000 tonnes, even though domestic summer demand was 115,000~120,000 tonnes a day, meaning Russia had a daily oil refining capacity deficit of 35%.
In late July 2026, the first wave of fuel shortages in Russia had somewhat abated following the crude oil export bans, lowering the fuel quality standards, importing fuel from abroad, and other Kremlin attempts at mitigation, although shortages remained.
Second wave: mid-August 2026
The effects of the fuel crisis mitigation measures had partially worn off by early August. In the first and second weeks of August, Ukrainian drones struck about ten more oil industry facilities. On 17 August, Reuters reported that a second wave of fuel shortages was sweeping across the country. Ten regions – Orenburg, Lipetsk, Tver, Krasnodar, Zabaykalsky, Primorsky, Krasnoyarsk, Oryol, Tuva and Khakhassia – which had previously relaxed their fuel restrictions had tightened them again by 14 August, and witnesses in Moscow Oblast reported on 17 August that several filling stations had no gasoline (petrol) available anymore, although most stations did offer diesel at the time. Data from the Saint-Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange (SPIMEX) indicated that, compared to the second half of July, gasoline sales in Russia fell by 20% in the first half of August.
The same week, Russian media reported that over 70% of filling stations across the Russian Federation had run out of fuel. On 19 August, the monitoring app Gdebenz put petrol availability at 28% of filling stations in the country, down from 41% the week before. The same day, the Yandex Fuel Service indicated 90% of stations in Moscow were out of AI-92 petrol. According to Euronews, this was a sign that the "second wave of fuel shortages is hitting harder than the first, with queues forming at pumps in Moscow for the first time." Meanwhile, according to data from the Central Bank of Russia, citizens were withdrawing rubles from banks in record amounts, possibly indicating a bank run. BBC News journalist Steve Rosenberg reported on 21 August 2026 that many stations in Moscow had completely run out of petrol, while other stations had drivers queueing in their cars for 2 to 2.5 hours, with 80 vehicles waiting in line for one station alone. Some Muscovites go petrol hunting at night, driving around the capital for short queues (wasting their remaining fuel), or waiting in line for a chance to refill, sometimes in vain. One resident declared: "Last night I went to get petrol at 11pm. By midnight I'd reached the front of the queue. Then they shut the petrol station until 2am." Another said: "I drove into Moscow yesterday from the provinces. It was empty petrol stations all the way. Everyone says there is a difficult situation in the country."
Impact Impact in 2025 In November 2025, Reuters reported that Russia's oil processing had fallen only 3% during the year despite the attacks, as refineries averted a steep decline by using spare capacity to offset the damage. According to the report based on information from three Russian industry sources, 20% of Russia's refinery capacity was taken offline at the height of strikes between August and October, but this only resulted in a 6% drop in Russia's total refining volume. In terms of revenue, however, the International Energy Agency said that Russia's oil revenue declined to one of the lowest levels seen since the start of the war in 2022.
In December 2025, Russian energy analyst Craig Kennedy said that new sanctions by the US, EU, and the UK were likely to substantially cut Russia's oil revenues in 2026, while intensifying what he described as the worst crisis in Russia's energy sector since the 1990s.
Impact in June–July 2026
In early July 2026, Reuters said that most regions in Russia were experiencing fuel restrictions, resulting in growing public concern. Russians created crowdsourced maps and shared tips about which stations had fuel and short lines; social media showed motorists brawling over fuel. Farmers in the wheat belt were worried that, without fuel for their machines, they would not be able to harvest their crops. On 4 July 2026, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine estimated 42.74% of Russia's oil refining capacity had been disabled; the International Energy Agency (IEA) said "more than 20%" of capacity had been knocked offline. Finnish president Alexander Stubb stated in early July 2026 that Russia's capacity to produce and export oil had been reduced by 40% due to the Ukrainian mid- and long-range drone strikes. The Financial Times reported that Russia produced 4.1 million barrels of oil per day in June 2026 (28% below the 5-year average, and 35% below design capacity); the fuel shortage had so far affected 50 million people (35% of the Russian Federation's population); and by 9 July the majority of regions of Russia had local authorities or retailers imposing fuel sales restrictions.