Russia’s fuel crisis, triggered by sustained Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries, grows more severe by the day. Gasoline shortages, or sharp spikes in demand driven by fears of a deeper deficit, have been reported in nearly every region of the country. Over the weekend, even President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the shortages, though he added that the gasoline deficit is “not critical.” Authorities in 26 regions have already imposed restrictions on fuel sales, but so far those measures have done little to contain the crisis. Lines at gas stations keep getting longer, and Russians are flooding social media with complaints that they can’t fill up their cars. Meduza has collected some of the most striking online reactions to the fuel shortage.
Warning: Some of the videos below contain Russian-language profanity.
Complaints about fuel shortages across Siberia surged last week, driven by sales restrictions that authorities in the Irkutsk, Omsk, and Novosibirsk regions introduced on June 23. Per-vehicle limits vary by region.
The situation appears worst in Irkutsk. On June 28, Irkutsk Governor Igor Kobzev declared a state of high alert to keep the gasoline shortage from escalating into an emergency. Interior Ministry officers and the Russian National Guard began patrolling lines at local gas stations. The following day, police said they had issued four citations to residents caught reselling gasoline at inflated prices.
Residents have been posting videos on Instagram showing long lines at gas stations. One user said she drove from Irkutsk to Angarsk — about 50 kilometers (31 miles) — and still could not fill up her car.
Drivers are spending entire nights in line, and even then not everyone manages to buy fuel. In the local Telegram chat “Gde zalit? | Irkutsk” (“Where to fill up? | Irkutsk”), participants post videos from stations where signs say no fuel of any kind is available. Some drivers say they spent about 18 hours in line before filling up; others share tips on how to prepare for the trip to the pump.
Irkutsk Mayor Ruslan Bolotov said late last week that the city would deploy portable toilets near gas stations to ease the inconvenience for drivers waiting in line. He added that the city had no diesel shortages but that gasoline was available at only one station chain. Residents said the portable toilets had also appeared along some of the highways where the longest lines had formed.
Local Telegram channels also reported that a home gasoline-delivery service has sprung up in Irkutsk, sparing residents the wait in line, though it costs customers roughly twice the usual price.
Residents are reporting long lines (and stations with no fuel at all) in Ufa, Izhevsk, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, and many other cities. Some of the videos are highly charged.
A resident of Rostov-on-Don said four gas stations in her area had only diesel fuel. After searching for three hours, she joined a line at one station — only to learn, an hour later, that the gasoline had run out. She later managed to fill her tank.
In a video from Ivanovo region, an Instagram user drives along a line of about 150 cars and asks why people are arguing with each other instead of trying to understand what caused the shortage. Commenters say the situation in Ivanovo itself is no better.
The outlet Fortanga reported on June 26 that some Rosneft stations and several other companies’ stations in Ingushetia had suspended operations. The day before, the independent Russian news outlet Verstka wrote that Ingushetia was one of five Russian regions the fuel crisis had not yet reached.
The Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ published several videos from various Russian cities, including Moscow, where residents are also complaining about the lack of gasoline and long lines at gas stations. Some residents were unable to buy fuel at all.
In one such video, a woman in Novosibirsk — where some gas stations halted gasoline sales to private customers that day — warns that the fuel crisis will hit supply chains across the country.
Residents of Crimea, where fuel shortages began as early as late May, may soon face a new problem: internet outages. The outlet Krym.Realii reported as much, citing an unnamed employee at a local internet provider.
The source told the outlet that internet providers were not on the list of critical infrastructure. As a result, fuel shortages and prolonged power outages will soon leave them unable to meet their obligations to customers.
Despite the difficulties at the pump, Russians are doing what they often do: joking about it. They are singing songs about gasoline, riffing on fuel-crisis news in the style of the poet Joseph Brodsky, and dubbing over popular films.
The Telegram channel Govorit NeMoskva published a collection of such videos, in which users jokingly blame the fuel crisis on VPNs — a dig at Russian authorities known for blaming those services for every problem — and declare a gas can the must-have accessory of the summer. They also play on the word “zapravitsya” (to fill up).
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
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