Restive Russians To Face Gas Lines This Summer

Digital price boards outside Russian gas stations are starting to read “Zero.” With more and more storage tanks empty, gas lines are forming at the start of Russia’s peak summer driving season. It is another blow to public support for President Putin.Behind the spreading gasoline shortage is Ukraine’s relentless, long-range drone campaign against Russian refineries. Drone attacks have forced “virtually all” major oil refineries in central Russia to stop or cut back production, Reuters reported last week. On a larger scale, Russia’s loss of refining capacity contributes to the global oil squeeze caused by Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz. On Thursday, the head of the International Energy Agency Fatih Birol warned that tight supplies, depleting stocks, and the summer driving season could push the world oil market late this summer into “the red zone.”Russia has lost about one third of its gasoline production capacity due to Ukrainian drone attacks, Russian exile news site Novaya Gazeta Europa estimated Friday. “In 2026, Ukrainian drones were able to inflict much more serious damage on Russian oil refining than before,” wrote Novaya Gazeta economics reporter Denis Morokhin. A former Russia energy reporter for Reuters, he said that today the main gasoline distribution depots and hubs ringing Moscow are out of regular and premium grades of gasoline. Poland’s state news outlet VT calculates that Ukrainian drones have hit all but two Russian refineries capable of refining 200,000 barrels per day or more. These two outliers are located east of the Urals, at Angarsk and Omsk, out of range of Ukraine’s long range missiles, for now.Knowing the political cost of gasoline lines, Russian officials are coy about why gas stations are running dry in the world’s third largest oil producer after America and Saudi Arabia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Thursday that any decline in gas production would be due to “seasonal maintenance.” On Friday in Crimea, Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razvozhayev announced gas rationing, limiting sales to five gallons per car. He posted on Telegram: “We are currently experiencing certain logistical challenges, the causes of which are known.” New drive-by video footage of Crimea’s largest tank farm, at Feodosia, shows the facility burnt to a crisp, the legacy of six separate drone attacks over the last 18 months.Cutting gasoline deliveries to Crimea, Ukraine is using new, AI-guided drones to autonomously scan the ‘Novorossiya’ highway for tanker trucks — and to hit them. Using this new technology, Ukraine now reaches 50 to 100 miles behind battle lines to devastate Russian logistics. In a symbolic blow to Russia’s invasion, occupation authorities last week banned civilian trucks from the road. This four-lane, divided highway is touted by Mr. Putin as a geostrategic ‘land bridge’ linking Russia’s mainland to the Crimean peninsula.Ukraine’s daily pounding of Russian refineries frays the nerves of the loyalist elite in Moscow. “There are just strikes, strikes, strikes, strikes, strikes,” state TV host Olga Skabeyeva complained Friday night on her Rossiya 1 talk show. Nicknamed the “Iron Doll of Putin’s TV,” she said the Ukrainians “are pelting us with drones.” “Frankly speaking, the efforts they are undertaking are quite successful,” she concluded. On Saturday, Ukrainian drones hit an export terminal, a tank farm, and an oil tanker at Novorossiysk. In peacetime, this Black Sea port handled about one third of Russia’s oil exports. Over the last three years, Ukrainian air and sea drones hit the port dozens of times. According to VT, the Polish news site, Ukrainian drones have hit Ryazan and Saratov refineries on 15 occasions. Three other Russian refineries have been hit 12 times.Repeat attacks tell military analysts three things: Ukraine’s drones and missiles are not as devastating as American missiles. Russia’s long vaunted air defenses are ineffectual. Ukraine returns again and again, hitting billion-dollar refineries at its leisure. To make raids more devastating, Ukraine has started to produce and use F-5 ‘Flamingo’ rockets. One of these jet-powered missiles can carry a one-ton warhead nearly 2,000 miles. The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert ‘Madyar’ Brovdy, shows little interest in easing the campaign. Last week, he boasted on Telegram: “10 TOP oil refineries in the Russian Federation were fried during 20 days of May.”To soften the impact at the gas pumps, Russia last month banned gasoline exports through July. To keep Russia’s 60 million cars, trucks and buses moving this summer, the government may import gasoline and diesel from neighboring Belarus. Since Belarus produces only a small amount of oil, this would mean that Russia would import products refined from Russian oil. The relentless nature of the attacks reflect Ukrainians belief that these ‘long range sanctions’ will force Russia’s leadership to look for a face-saving exit from the war. Citing “the use of long-range drones against Russian oil refining and export positions,” President Volodymyr Zelensky told the nation Friday night: “We are bringing the war home, to Russia — and this is quite right.”Meanwhile, Russians are starting to sound like Americans in spring 1979. Then, the Iranian revolution caused Iranian oil production to plummet. This sent world prices skyward, pushed Americans into gas lines, and helped deprive President Carter of a second term. “Does anyone know where we can fill up on [premium] gasoline today?” a driver in Ryazan posted Thursday on the social media page of the regional governor, Pavel Malkov. “The gas station attendant said there’s a moratorium starting today … Any info on where to go?” Ryazan refinery, the third largest in Russia, was hit twice last week. It is not expected to reopen until late June.

Restive Russians To Face Gas Lines This Summer

Restive Russians To Face Gas Lines This Summer

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