Russia Is Out of Gasoline, but Complaining Is Not an Option

The second wave of Russia gasoline shortages is here and Putin is not taking it well. Regular readers already know that there was an earlier wave of shortages which led to long lines and a flurry of fist fights at gas stations throughout Russia. Putin dealt with that by stopping the export of gasoline and by beginning to import it from some of his neighbors.

For a few weeks the problem seemed to lessen quite a bit even if it never completely went away. But recent strikes on additional oil refineries have brought the lines surging back. In fact, they may be worse than ever.

Petrol was available at fewer than three in 10 petrol stations across Russia on Wednesday, the latest sign that a second wave of fuel shortages is hitting harder than the first, with queues forming at pumps in Moscow for the first time.

The monitoring app Gdebenz put nationwide petrol availability at 28% of filling stations on Wednesday, down from 41% a week earlier.

Fuel restrictions — including limits on the volume sold per customer, QR-based rationing and odd-even number plate schemes — were in place in nearly all regions as of last Saturday, according to Benzinmap, which tracks restrictions and prices nationwide.

Even in Moscow, which Putin has tried to insulate from the impact of the war, there were long lines of people waiting once again.

Driving around Moscow this week two things catch the eye: patriotic announcements on giant billboards about Russian Flag Day…and giant petrol queues.

Outside one Moscow petrol station I count 80 vehicles waiting in line.

The search for fuel is now a constant struggle.

“Last night I went to get petrol at 11pm,” says Elizaveta who’s queuing again for fuel. “By midnight I’d reached the front of the queue. Then they shut the petrol station until 2am.”

“I drove into Moscow yesterday from the provinces,” says Lyubov. “It was empty petrol stations all the way.”

There are a bunch of new videos confirming it.

Russia: Fuel crisis in Moscow.
The available supply of gasoline is around 28% of the demand thanks to ongoing Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries. pic.twitter.com/zc3Z4xXkJp

— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) August 21, 2026

Another step Russia took to deal with the shortage was to allow lower quality gasoline to be produced. Some of it appears to be very low quality.

More videos of car engines being destroyed across Russia as counterfeit and ultra-low quality gasoline are the only fuel Russians can now get their hands on. pic.twitter.com/5MVMnnIMDn

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) August 17, 2026

And of course there are people getting into fights. If you’ve been waiting for gas for hours and someone tries to cut you off, fights are going to happen.

More tales from the Octane Octagon, as violence continues to break out across Russia, with fuel starved Russians lashing out, venting frustrations accumulated over days, hours and kilometers sitting in gas lines. pic.twitter.com/SqsMNd2HmZ

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) August 19, 2026

Russia is tearing itself apart at the pumps. In Nizhny Novgorod, drivers are now literally wrestling in gas station queues as the fuel crisis spirals.

People scrambling to cut the line or grab more than their ration shows a collapsing rear. Thanks to relentless Ukrainian strikes… pic.twitter.com/prt57dVC3b

— medoyid_ua (@LetsArmUKR) August 20, 2026

Russian gas stations have turned into battlegrounds. pic.twitter.com/CMWwUTm8OA

— Churchill MGᵀᴹ 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇸 (@ChurchillFella) August 19, 2026

Again, no one has any doubt about why this is happening. It’s hard to miss the giant black clouds hovering over oil refineries. But don’t worry, Putin says the lack of gas is “non-critical.”

In the first two weeks of August alone, nearly a dozen more facilities were hit, including Yaroslavnefteorgsintez in Yaroslavl, two refineries in Bashkortostan and export infrastructure at the port of Ust-Luga.

Russian Forbes calculated that damaged refineries now account for 54% of total national refining capacity. Daily petrol output fell to between 75,000 and 80,000 tonnes in July, against summer demand of 115,000 to 120,000 tonnes — a daily deficit of roughly 35%.

Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the shortage at the end of July, describing it as “non-critical”. He repeated the phrase on Wednesday.

“There are no critical consequences from such attacks, there have been none and there cannot be any. But they do, of course, cause us damage; that is obvious, we understand it, we see it and we know it,” Putin said.

I don’t know. I think if you’re stuck waiting for gas for many hours a day and can’t do anything else it probably feels pretty critical to you. But Putin has made it very clear that individuals are not allowed to complain.

Russians expressing concern about the situation are now finding themselves subject to fines and arrest.

In Volgograd, police detained five residents after they filmed a video appeal to Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, demanding to know why local officials were using priority fuel cards while public pumps sat dry. Authorities branded the five-person recording an “unauthorised public gathering” and issued fines…

Katia Glod, the deputy head of foreign policy at the New Eurasia Strategies Centre (NEST), said the crackdown indicated the significant impact of Kyiv’s aerial campaign on Russian infrastructure…

…this approach carries significant risks for the Kremlin, she added: “This is Putin’s biggest domestic challenge since the beginning of the war.

“The regime is not prepared to compromise, or deal with the fuel crisis in a human way — the response will most likely be more arrests, more repression — which Russia definitely has the capacity to do.”

So it’s illegal to criticize the war and it’s also illegal to criticize the consequences of the war. People might get tired of that after a while. 

All of this is happening in summer when gasoline usage is at its peak. However, the situation could become far more dire in winter. People can afford to sit for hours in a non running car in the summer. But average daily temperatures in Moscow in December are below freezing. You can’t sit in a car with no heat for hours in those temperatures. Most people will be smart enough not to even try. And what happens if natural gas supplies used to heat homes are impacted by drones as well?

Finally, there is no reason to think this situation will be better by winter. So far the trendline this year in Russia has gone from bad to worse. Ukraine isn’t going to stop blowing up refineries. Putin can keep jailing people who complain but at some point soon it’s better to complain than to freeze to death. 

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