Putin arrests Russians for complaining about fuel shortages as fighting breaks out at petrol stations

Queues lengthen across Moscow and the regions

Long lines of vehicles have formed at petrol stations in Moscow and other parts of Russia this week as motorists struggle to find fuel. At one station in the south-east of the capital, a driver named Svyatoslav waited two hours only for the signboard to switch to “no fuel,” according to reporting by BBC — World. He told the correspondent he lacked enough petrol in his tank to search elsewhere. Outside another Moscow station the same outlet counted roughly 80 vehicles waiting in line.

Similar scenes have appeared well beyond the capital. Across at least 12 regions motorists have waited as long as 30 hours in gridlocked traffic, with fights breaking out between drivers, The Independent reported. Deutsche Welle, citing Reuters, said at least 30 regions are now affected. The current wave is hitting the Moscow area harder than an earlier round of shortages that ran from late May to mid-July. Chains including Gazprom Neft and Tatneft have restricted sales in the capital, and Moscow and surrounding regions have reimposed purchase caps of 50 to 60 litres per vehicle.

In the southern Krasnodar region, including Sochi, drivers have queued for hours. Local authorities blamed heightened holiday demand, yet a Sochi real-estate agent, Igor Zakharchenko, wrote that the city felt emptied of both petrol and visitors. A resident named Lyubov told BBC — World that every station she passed on the drive into Moscow from the provinces was empty. Another Muscovite, Elizaveta, described reaching the front of a queue at midnight only for the station to close until 2 a.m.

An estimated 50 million people face supply disruptions, according to figures carried by The Independent. Katia Glod, deputy head of foreign policy at the New Eurasia Strategies Centre, told that outlet there is no petrol at all in 80 regions and that a state of emergency has been declared in Crimea and parts of the Urals. Police have been sent to guard some stations.

Ukrainian strikes and the official explanation

Russian officials attribute the shortages to “unscheduled repairs at oil refineries” triggered by Ukrainian drone strikes. BBC — World reported that such long-range attacks earlier this summer already produced major fuel shortages and that the targeting of refineries has continued. The Independent noted that Ukraine hit another major oil refinery on Wednesday; since early August drones have knocked out nearly a third of the country’s major refineries. A processing facility in Bashkortostan was set ablaze and a major plant in Orsk was shuttered, with repairs that could take up to six months.

July crude processing fell to 3.6 million barrels per day—a third below the seasonal average and the lowest level since May 2000—according to The Independent. President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that attacks on industrial facilities and infrastructure “do inflict damage; this is obvious. We understand this, we see it,” yet insisted there are “no critical consequences” and that none “have been and cannot be,” BBC — World reported.

Energy minister Sergei Tsivilyov has acknowledged the queues while maintaining that diesel can still be found “everywhere.” First deputy chairman of the State Duma energy committee Igor Ananskikh told RTVI he expected normalisation within two to three weeks. Deputy prime minister Alexander Novak has described government stop-gaps as achieving “partial stabilisation.”

Government responses and stop-gap measures

Moscow has extended export bans, begun importing petrol—including stockpiles from India and fuel from Azerbaijan—and temporarily authorised the production and sale of lower-grade Euro 2 petrol. That grade was banned in Russia in 2013 and contains up to 50 times more sulphur than Euro 5 standard fuel. The government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta has warned that regular use can increase pressure on fuel injectors, spark plugs, oxygen sensors, catalytic converters and soot filters in modern cars, BBC — World noted. Nezavisimaya Gazeta has called the situation a “second wave of the fuel crisis.”

Economist Nikolai Korzhenevsky, speaking to Deutsche Welle, disputed rapid recovery forecasts, pointing to poor-quality fuel already damaging engines and to garage wait-lists stretching several months even in Moscow. He said Russian oil production has fallen from 11.5 million barrels per day in 2019 to under 9 million and could drop toward 8 million, creating conditions for a wider systemic crisis. Business journalist Vyacheslav Shiryaev argued that importing roughly 200,000 tonnes a day from India, China or elsewhere is not viable given Russia’s isolation. Economist Igor Lipsits told the same outlet that damaged refineries cannot be restored quickly and remain vulnerable to further attacks; he noted that priority fill-ups for municipal, medical, police and security vehicles are generating resentment and recalled closed elite distribution systems of the late Soviet period.

Oleg Grigorenko, editor-in-chief of the independent portal 7x7, told Deutsche Welle the shortages are already an economic problem for taxi drivers, courier services and construction logistics, not merely a personal inconvenience.

Arrests and public expressions of frustration

Police have detained or fined residents who complained about the shortages. In Volgograd five people were detained after filming a video appeal to Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee, asking why local officials held priority fuel cards while public pumps ran dry; authorities labelled the recording an “unauthorised public gathering” and issued fines, The Independent reported. Lawyer Alexei Sevastyanov received five days’ detention for allegedly resisting police and told local outlet V1.ru that claiming a video appeal requires administrative approval is “simply absurd.” In Perm, Lev Samolovskikh was fined 10,000 roubles for mentioning a planned protest in a Telegram channel that had 44 subscribers.

Glod described the crackdown as evidence of the campaign’s impact on infrastructure and called the fuel crisis President Putin’s biggest domestic challenge since the war began. She said polling shows growing numbers of Russians want the war to end, albeit on Russia’s terms, and warned that prolonged shortages combined with rising inflation could force compromises.

BBC — World cited recent polling, including by the Public Opinion Foundation, suggesting rising societal anxiety. Columnist Andrei Kolesnikov of Novaya Gazeta pointed to a disconnect between public feeling and the president’s description of reality. At the same time, Russian Flag Day events in Moscow featured candyfloss, concerts, tricolour handouts and children posing with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers, the same outlet observed, underscoring the parallel display of official patriotism.

Ukrainian strikes have also hit Wildberries distribution centres, disrupting shoppers and sellers, according to BBC — World. No drone attacks on Russian oil facilities occurred before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that reporting noted; the Kremlin continues to refer to the conflict as a “special military operation.”

Differing assessments of duration and stakes

Officials present the shortages as a manageable, temporary consequence of repairs. Independent economists and analysts interviewed by Deutsche Welle and The Independent portray a more structural problem of declining production, slow repairs and vulnerability to continued strikes. Shiryaev argued that a sharp intensification of Ukrainian attacks, if supported by the West, could disorganise internal logistics, disrupt the 6,000-kilometre rail network that runs on diesel, halt factories and food distribution, and constrain military plans within weeks. Glod and others frame the crisis as a test of domestic resilience that has already prompted repression alongside technical stop-gaps.

Street-level voices captured by BBC — World convey adaptation and fatigue rather than open revolt: drivers wait, stroke pets to stay calm, and keep searching for the next open pump. Whether the shortages ease in the two-to-three-week window projected by some lawmakers or persist into a longer systemic strain remains the central point of disagreement among the officials, economists and residents whose views have been recorded.

Perspectives

Russian government and energy officials present the shortages as the result of unscheduled but containable repairs, insist diesel remains widely available, and forecast normalisation within weeks while describing stop-gap imports and lower fuel standards as partial stabilisation. President Putin has acknowledged visible damage yet ruled out critical consequences.

Independent economists and analysts, including Nikolai Korzhenevsky, Igor Lipsits, Vyacheslav Shiryaev and Katia Glod, describe deeper production declines, slow and vulnerable repairs, elite priority access that breeds resentment, and the risk that prolonged disruption could force political compromises or constrain military logistics.

Ordinary motorists and regional voices recorded by reporters convey daily frustration—empty stations, multi-hour or multi-day waits, and economic pain for taxis, couriers and builders—while often continuing to adapt rather than organise open protest.