Fuel Shortages Sweep Russia as Ukraine's Drone Campaign Bites
A second wave of petrol-station shortages spread across Russian regions, and Russia took delivery of a gasoline cargo from India — a striking reversal for one of the world’s largest oil producers. The Black Sea port of Novorossiysk was reported to have resumed oil loadings only on Monday after Ukraine’s drone attack. Kyiv’s campaign against refineries and depots is visibly straining Russia’s fuel system.
Queues at Russian petrol stations are the most tangible evidence yet that Ukraine’s long-range strategy is working: refineries knocked out faster than they can be repaired, export terminals disrupted, and a country that fuels wars abroad importing petrol from India to keep its own cars moving. The shortages carry political weight in a state that has insulated its public from the war’s costs, and they compound the economic strain of sanctions and falling energy revenue. For Kyiv, the refinery campaign offers leverage that battlefield lines have not. Moscow will race to repair and to suppress the evidence. Watch whether the shortages deepen and whether Russia retaliates against Ukraine’s own energy grid as winter nears.