Russia Boosts Belarus Gasoline Imports 20-Fold to Mitigate Severe Domestic Fuel Crisis

Russia has raised its fuel purchases from Belarus to a record high, buying roughly 20 times as much gasoline in the first half of 2026 to cover a domestic shortage stretching from the Far East to Kaliningrad.

Reuters first reported the figures on July 9, citing industry sources, with the data relayed by The Moscow Times.

The surge shows how deeply Ukraine's months-long drone campaign against Russian refineries has cut domestic output, forcing Moscow to lean on its neighbor to keep pumps running.

Gasoline deliveries from Belarusian refineries topped 181,000 tons in June, three times the volume shipped a month earlier. Over the first half of the year, those purchases climbed twentyfold to 453,000 tons, the report noted.

Diesel imports rose fivefold to 256,000 tons between January and June. Belarus also sent more than 16,000 tons of jet fuel last month, again triple its May total.

Belarus runs two refineries with a combined annual capacity of 24 million tons and had earlier signaled its readiness to offset the shortfall at Russian plants.

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Those plants have been struck dozens of times by Ukrainian drones since January, cutting Russian refining to its lowest level since the early 2000s.

The Belarusian fuel comes at a steep markup, running roughly 60 percent above the Russian wholesale prices quoted on the St. Petersburg exchange on July 9, according to the outlet.

The turn to Belarusian supply reflects the depth of a fuel crisis that has spread across Russia since the start of the year. More than 20 Ukrainian strikes have hit Russian oil refineries since January, disabling eight of the country's ten largest plants.

Together, they have knocked roughly a quarter of national refining capacity offline. Gasoline output has fallen about 25 percent, forcing sales limits and rationing at filling stations across more than 50 regions, from occupied Crimea to the Far East.

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