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Russia Now Faces Gasoline Rationing in 20 Russian and Occupied Regions After Ukraine Strikes
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Restrictions on gasoline sales have spread to at least 20 regions across Russia and Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, driven by Ukrainian drone strikes on the country's oil refineries, according to The Moscow Times on June 4.
Fuel disruptions tied to the strikes have affected no fewer than 15 Russian federal subjects, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, while purchase limits have been introduced in five temporarily occupied Ukrainian regions.
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The Moscow Times traced the earliest complaints to the Ryazan region, where residents reported a shortage of AI-92 and AI-95 in late May. Those shortages followed a Ukrainian drone strike on Rosneft's Ryazan refinery, one of the largest in the country.
In temporarily occupied Crimea, shortages emerged as Ukrainian drones cut the overland supply route to the peninsula, and stations capped sales at 20 liters of AI-95 per customer. Occupation authorities in Sevastopol introduced diesel coupons and a 20-liter gasoline cap before announcing a "temporary" absence of AI-92 and AI-95.
By early June, the limits had reached New Moscow, where stations stopped selling more than 60 liters of gasoline and 100 liters of diesel per customer until further notice, the outlet noted. Comparable caps had already surfaced in St. Petersburg.
In the Moscow region, the ORTK network limited sales to 60 liters of gasoline and 100 liters of diesel per vehicle from May 30, while Gazprom and Lukoil set ceilings of 100 to 150 liters per vehicle. The Moscow Times added that Rosneft and Tatneft stations had begun rationing in the Kursk, Belgorod, and Pskov regions.
The crisis also reached northern and northwestern Russia. In the Novgorod region, drivers reported 20-liter caps, mainly at Surgutneftegaz outlets, while several stations in Karelia paused sales until fresh deliveries arrived. Officials there tied the shortfall to higher demand at the start of the summer holiday season.
In the Murmansk region, pumps at multiple stations ran dry. "Gasoline and diesel ran out at a number of gas stations ... the situation is difficult," local residents told the outlet.
The Moscow Times also documented shortages south of the capital. Drivers in the Voronezh region were turned away at a station in the village of Shilovo, where a notice posted said AI-95 was unavailable until the end of the month. In the Oryol region, outlets stopped dispensing fuel into metal canisters.
Krasnoyarsk drivers described the same canister ban, which Rosneft stations enforced from May 29, with the neighboring Tomsk region following suit, leaving residents unable to fuel generators and tillers during the peak summer season. In Kamchatka's Koryak district, authorities restricted sales to conserve reserves until next year's winter road opens.
Purchase limits were also imposed in the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions, where local occupation authorities warned of a risk of fuel shortages.
The shortages trace back to a sustained campaign that has crippled much of Russia's refining capacity. By mid-May, drone strikes had idled almost every processing facility in central Russia and cut oil companies' fuel output by roughly a quarter, taking plants with 238,000 tons of daily capacity offline.
Moscow, which banned gasoline exports in late March, has since weighed extending the curbs to diesel and kerosene.
Ukraine's drive against Russian refineries has expanded steadily since the start of the full-scale invasion. Ukrainian forces have carried out at least 158 strikes on Russian oil refineries since 2022, hitting 24 of the country's 33 largest plants and driving national refining to its lowest level since 2009.
The campaign inflicted more than $13 billion in combined direct and indirect losses on Russia's oil industry in 2025.
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