We’re a month deep into the Russia fuel crisis, and things are starting to get out of hand.
What started as shortages in Crimea has bled over to almost all of Russia’s 83 regions.
Those regions are on their knees.
The pumps are empty.
The people are p***ed.
And Ukraine’s non-stop campaign against Russian oil is now so massive that it is triggering violence all over Russia.
But that’s not all.
Russia is running out of fuel, but portable toilet manufacturers look set to make a fortune! Stick with us, and we’ll explain why.
But first, the big news.
In a July 6 piece, CNN breaks down what’s happening all over Russia right now.
Almost every single one of Russia’s 83 regions is now being wracked by gasoline shortages or, at the very least, reporting disruptions to fuel supplies amidst a devastating Ukrainian campaign against Russia’s oil refineries.
Those refineries are responsible for turning crude oil into gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, and so much more, and Ukraine just won’t stop hitting them.
June alone saw Ukraine conduct 11 long-range strikes against Russian refineries, with drones traveling as far as 2,000 kilometers into Russia to leave fuel burning and key refining tools shattered.
That killer month comes on the back of a year’s worth of constant and repeated strikes, and Russia is now feeling the pain.
What started as a shortage in Crimea, prompted both by the refinery strikes and a logistical lockdown campaign in which Ukraine has been taking out fuel trucks by the hundreds in the occupied territories, has become a nationwide crisis for Russia.
States of emergency have been declared.
Fuel bans for
everybody except military and emergency service personnel are in place in some regions.
Across all 11 time zones in Russia, there is nobody who is completely untouched by a shortage of the one thing that Russia relies on to keep its war going.
The sheer scale of this problem is a catastrophe for Russia.
And it’s causing a whole raft of issues beyond Russian people not being able to fill their gas tanks.
CNN’s conclusions come from an analysis of statements delivered by regional mayors and governors, along with poring through media reports.
The outlet has found that more than 50 of Russia’s regions are officially reporting that they are struggling with fuel supplies.
So, how did CNN get to almost all 83? There are unofficial reports from other regions that shortages are hitting them, only the mayors and governors are trying to keep everything hush-hush.
How very Russian.
Pretend there isn’t a problem as the queues get larger and the crisis
expands.
Russia is running on empty right now, and the problem is only getting worse as time goes on and more of Ukraine’s drones find their marks.
According to the Saratoga Foundation, Ukraine’s General Staff reported in early July that its non-stop drone campaign has knocked out 42% of Russia’s refining capacity.
This, in turn, has cost Russia $13.
5 billion in losses since August 2025, the outlet says, with those losses likely linked to Russia not being able to export fuel products because they’re burning in the refineries.
The Center for European Policy Analysis, or CEPA, paints a slightly better picture for Russia, though it is still far from good.
It says that Russia’s refining capacity is 28% less than in previous years, but the numbers are dropping every month.
By the end of March, Russia’s refined oil output stood at around 5.
2 million barrels, CEPA says.
By April, that number had fallen by 13%, with 700,000 barrels cut from the monthly figures.
Right now, CEPA adds, Russia’s refineries simply aren’t producing enough fuel to meet demand.
That demand peaks in the summer, as Russia needs 110,000 tonnes of gasoline per day to supply its people.
Russia isn’t making that much.
It’s stuck on 85,000 tons, which is a 25,000-tonnes shortfall that goes a long way toward explaining the crisis that is spreading all over Russia right now.
What’s happening in Russia is so bad that Putin has been forced to do something that he never does: Admit that there’s a problem.
Toward the end of June, as queues piled up at the gas stations and Russians in regions all over the country could see their refineries burning, Putin acknowledged that Russian people might just be dealing with some issues.
“You’re well aware that problems persist for both motorists and businesses,” Putin said, adding, “Unfortunately, there are still queues at petrol stations, and finding the right grade of petrol isn’t always easy.
” Russia’s leader even went so far as to admit that there were only a few days of supply left in Crimea, and that Ukraine’s drone strikes were “obviously creating problems.
” In most other nations, this kind of acknowledgment would be expected.
Leaders are supposed to show that they’re willing to confront problems.
But in Russia, where Putin thrives by keeping his people in the dark, the fact that there is any sort of admission of a problem coming from the highest power in the Kremlin shows that Russia’s fuel shortage is no minor thing.
It’s a full-blown crisis.
And even as Putin claims that solutions are in the works, he knows that, in reality, he can’t do much to stop Ukraine at this point.
“But hold on a second,” you might be thinking.
“Wasn’t there a fuel crisis in Russia in 2025, too? Russia managed to recover from that, so what makes the 2026 edition so serious?” The fact that there is a 2026 edition at all is one of the biggest problems for Russia.
What happened in 2025 wasn’t a one-off.
It’s a repeatable strategy that Ukraine can use to bring the war that Putin started back home to the Russian people without having to resort to Putin’s approach of committing war crimes against civilians with missile and drone attacks that target people, rather than petrol.
The fact that this is happening again is a sign to those in Russia that Putin utterly failed to solve the problems that led to the 2025 crisis in the first place.
Great protector? More like feckless failure.
But beyond that, there are some big differences between the 2025 fuel shortage and what’s happening in 2026.
As the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW, points out, the 2025 shortage was similar to 2026, but far less severe.
That crisis impacted at least 57 of Russia’s 83 regions, rather than practically all of them, though it did expose the ineptitude of Russia’s air defenses when it comes to dealing with Ukraine’s drones.
What we see here is a pattern of Putin underestimating Ukraine’s capabilities and overestimating Russia’s ability to defend itself, which makes the 2026 crisis an example of the Russian leader’s inflated ego coming back to bite him right in the rear.
Another difference between 2025 and 2026 lies in the scale and persistence of Ukraine’s approach.
Both have intensified this year compared to last, which is why we’re seeing the crisis spread wider than ever before.
Sumit Ritolia, who is the lead analyst for refining supply and modeling at Kpler, revealed that difference to CNN, and also pointed out that Russia has a problem with repairing its damaged refinery equipment.
Ukraine is winning the race.
Drones strike so often that Russia can’t get damaged equipment back online before the next drones arrive, leading to a compounding effect where every strike builds on the success of the last.
Sanctions are making it harder for Russia to get its hands on crucial parts, too, which means that equipment that might have been fixed in a matter of days sometimes requires weeks, or even months, to repair.
All of this is going according to Ukraine’s perfectly crafted plan.
Striking refineries is great from the perspective of costing Russia billions of dollars in tax revenue that it would otherwise have used for the war.
But more than that, Ukraine is testing the resolve of the Russian people each time a refinery is hit and fuel shortages are made worse.
Every limit or ban imposed on fuel purchases is a needle jabbed into the side of the collective Russian people.
As the queues grow large, anxiety rises.
Sitting around for up to 18 hours waiting for fuel, and not even getting enough to fill your tank, would be enough to make anybody tetchy.
Create that situation all over Russia, and you have made a powder keg.
That keg is already on the verge of exploding.
Violence is already erupting all over Russia, and the solutions that Russia is coming up with are all a bit…crap.
Literally, in one case.
But before we dig deeper into all of that, this is a reminder that you’re watching The Military Show.
There’s a lot more where this comes from, so make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell if you’re getting value from our channel.
So, we said that people are getting tetchy at Russia’s gas stations.
That may be an understatement.
Fights and arguments are breaking out all over Russia as civilians are breaking under the pressure that Ukraine is creating at the pumps.
Meduza reports on several of these instances.
In Irkutsk, the outlet reports on a man named Vladimir Botoev, who drove to a gas station and pushed into the front of the queue.
A police officer at the gas station wasn’t having any of it.
A gun was drawn, Botoev was arrested, and he now faces criminal charges for reportedly getting violent with the arresting officers.
There are so many more examples.
In St.
Petersburg, a fracas between two residents almost exploded to the point of being fatal.
A resident pulled up to a free pump, only for another to tell him that he needed to leave.
That other man, a taxi driver named Artush Muradyan, kept arguing until the first driver drew a pistol.
Not to be outdone, Muradyan went to his taxi, grabbed a knife, and attacked the unnamed other driver.
Over and over, we hear reports of similar instances all over Russia.
In Izhevsk, a driver is reported to have dragged another motorist out of his car.
A motorcyclist in Cheboksary has been pepper sprayed in the face after cutting the queue, and a woman has been attacked following an argument.
Tatarstan saw a multi-person melee break out at a gas station near the region’s border with Bashkortostan.
Over and over, we see frustration and anger boiling over, and these are just a handful of the many examples.
There are even videos being shared on social media of arguments breaking out and violence erupting.
“F*** you, I’ll smash your face in,” screamed one woman during a heated argument in a gas station queue, as Russians are turning on each other, all due to Ukraine’s brilliant refinery strategy.
And it’s hard to blame the frazzled Russian people for their reactions.
There are reports of people driving around for literal days in search of fuel, and makeshift apps have even popped up that purport to point people in the direction of gas stations that still have fuel.
Imagine using one of those apps, finding out that the nearest station that has fuel is dozens of miles away, arriving only to wait in an hours-long queue, only to get to the pump to discover that the fuel has run out.
You’d flip your lid.
And lids are being flipped all over Russia right now.
That, as much as the money, will have Putin worried because anger among the population is usually something that the police state he has created can control.
But such a widespread problem isn’t easy to quell, though Russia is trying.
Several solutions are being implemented to solve the Russian fuel crisis, and some are a little more…novel than others.
Some of the solutions are the types of things that you would expect Russia to do when faced with a fuel crisis on such a massive scale.
CEPA reports that Russia has already moved toward selling lower-grade fuel to its motorists, which was a move made back in August 2025 during the height of that year’s crisis.
Refineries are now allowed to produce Euro-3 gasoline, and even place it under the superior Euro-5 label.
That lower grade fuel has a sulfur content that is 15 times higher than the previously permitted level.
Higher sulfur levels in fuel lead to the production of more sulfur dioxide, which wears out engines and contributes to the type of air pollution that leads to acid rain.
So, a great solution there.
Let Russian people ruin the cars they can barely run, and then raise the potential for them to suffer under acid rain that destroys forests and water supplies.
Other solutions are designed to keep as much of the fuel that Russia produces inside the country.
Gasoline exports have been banned until at least the end of July.
Odds are that ban will be extended unless Russia is magically able to start producing more gasoline despite its refineries burning.
Russia has also banned jet fuel exports until the end of November, as it’s also struggling to keep both military and commercial aviation running.
And according to The Moscow Times, the Kremlin is also weighing up a ban on diesel exports, which would complete the trifecta for Ukraine – every major fuel that Russia produces can no longer be sold.
What we see here is a trade-off.
Export bans at least keep fuel inside Russia, potentially easing the shortage.
But they also mean that producers can’t sell overseas, which results in Russia losing billions of dollars in tax revenue on exports that can no longer happen.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
And we all know that when Putin and his cronies get desperate, they always do one thing: Lie.
In a June 30 article, Pravda reported that fuel prices in Russia are now being censored, meaning that sometimes people won’t know what they’re going to pay for their fuel until they reach the pumps.
Specifically, the Kremlin has stopped Russia’s leading statistical agency Rosstat from releasing its regular bulletins on consumer prices for gasoline and diesel.
That bulletin contains prices for fuel broken down by grade, region, and 1,800 gas stations across 280 cities.
At least, it did.
Now, it doesn’t, as the Kremlin scrambles to hide the obvious inflation that is happening to fuel prices as supply can no longer meet demand.
So, another pain point for the Russian people.
Wait for hours, get into a fight, and then find out that you don’t even have the rubles to buy enough fuel to get back home.
If Putin’s goal in the Ukraine war was to deliver the heights of the Soviet Union back to Russia, he’s going a strange way about it.
What all of this shows us is that Russia’s options for dealing with its fuel crisis are narrowing.
All of the logical solutions have already been put in place, and the lying has already begun.
That leaves the stranger solutions, and we gave you a clue to what they might be right at the beginning of this video.
Do you remember? We told you that portable toilet sellers are going to be rolling in cash due to this fuel crisis.
An interesting X post gives us some insight into what Russians are being forced to do as they spend hours in the fuel queues.
Snapped in Kerch, which is in Crimea, the photo shows a person squatting down on an embankment on the side of the road.
We bet you can guess what the person is doing.
They’re relieving themselves because they’ve been forced to wait so long that nature’s call turned into a scream.
“From Kerch, all the way to the bridge, the roadsides are covered in p*** and s***,” the X post blares, which even got a response from Ukraine’s Army Media, which said that for Russians, this is completely normal behavior.
Whether it is or not, the photo reveals a problem.
If you have people waiting for up to 18 hours in fuel queues, you’re going to get a lot of number ones and twos being dropped on the roadside.
In Irkutsk, which you may remember as the site of one of the violent incidents we recounted earlier, the local mayor has come up with a novel solution – buy portable toilets to be set up at gas stations and on the roadside for the people being forced to wait in line.
Portable toilet manufacturers
will be rubbing their hands in glee.
An unexpected windfall is coming their way, as we imagine this solution to the queue problem is going to become more widespread in other Russian regions.
We say solution.
It’s not really.
Portable toilets are just a symbol that the Kremlin expects the Russian people to suck it up and deal with the fact that a country that is renowned for its fuel production has run out of fuel.
And that brings us to what happens next.
Ukraine isn’t going to slow down with its refinery and fuel truck strikes.
Why would it? The impact is being felt all over Russia, and Ukraine has a golden opportunity to worsen this fuel crisis to put more pressure on Putin.
Success breeds more success in a masterclass of hurting the Russian people without killing them.
More worrying than that for Putin is the anger at the pumps.
He’ll be looking at that and will see thousands of people who are on the edge.
Nerves are frayed, and people are furious, which is a dangerous recipe for an authoritarian leader.
Could a revolt against Putin be in the cards? It’s hard to tell, as Putin has a habit of cracking down harshly on protests.
But there’s no denying that the ingredients for an uprising are all there.
Polls reveal how unsatisfied the average Russian is with Putin’s leadership.
CNN reports that only 27% of Russians believe that the country’s economy is getting better.
That tells us that about three-quarters of Russians are actually paying attention and see that they’re in a financial crater of Putin’s making.
According to The Moscow Times, July 3 saw Putin’s job approval rating record its sharpest weekly decline since the beginning of the Ukraine war, as his approval rating dropped from 70.
4% to 66.
9% and the number
of people who actively say they disapprove of how Putin handles the presidency rose to 21.
3%.
Those look like numbers that any other world leader would love to have.
However, these percentages come from the state-run VTsIOM pollster, which means they’ve been massaged as much as possible to soothe Putin’s ego.
Plus, this is Russia, where prison or falls from windows await people who complain about their leader.
The fact that so many are willing to express anger is a window into the true feelings of the Russian masses.
The fuel crisis is only going to feed this discontent.
Putin’s latest response to the problem has been to demand that Russian manufacturers pump out more air defense systems and missiles to tackle Ukraine’s drones.
Russia needs those defenses despite Putin’s claims that “All the strikes, wherever they hit our infrastructure, absolutely do not affect the situation on the front, on the line of combat contact.
” Oh, right? So Russia is just doing as poorly as it is in Ukraine because of Putin’s inept leadership.
Got it.
This is all nonsense, of course.
And it boggles the mind that Putin somehow expects more air defenses to appear in a country that is weighed down by sanctions and, according to Ukranews, has reached a production dead end in its defense sector.
Still, the order has been made.
Ukraine won’t care.
It was able to hit the refineries in 2024 and 2025, when Russia had more air defenses.
It’s hitting them harder in 2026, and it will hit them harder still as the year goes on.
The queues will get larger.
The violence will spread.
The anger will grow.
And Putin is forced to face up to the fact that he is losing so badly that portable toilet manufacture is primed to become one of the most successful business ideas in Russia.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
And it’s not just a fuel crisis that has knocked Putin off his strongman perch.
Since he started the Ukraine war, Russia’s leader has cratered his country’s geopolitical influence, leaving Russia in a far worse position than where it started.
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
