Starting in August 2025, increased Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries have caused widespread damage and a drop in production across the Russian oil industry, leading to an ongoing fuel crisis in the country.
There have been several gasoline crises in Russia since the 2010s started, mostly recently in 2023. As part of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Ukrainian drones had been targeting Russian refineries since 2024, causing expense and inconvenience. [1]
According to media reports, Ukraine carried out over a dozen drone attacks on Russian oil infrastructure between 2 and 24 August, the majority of them striking facilities in Ryazan Oblast and Volgograd Oblast in southwestern Russia. On 27 August, Ukrainian media reported that the Ryazan refinery, one of the main fuel arteries to Moscow, had been struck by a powerful explosion. Boris Aronstein, an independent oil and gas analyst, said that the Ukrainian drone strikes had caused "the most severe crisis in recent years", adding that the size, coordination and repeated waves of the drones makes Russia unable to repair the refineries before the next attack occurs. [2] According to Reuters, Crimea and Russia's far east were the first territories to experience a shortage of gasoline in August. [3]
In September 2025, Reuters reported that Russia was seeing certain fuel grade shortages, with the reduced refinery runs caused by the drone attacks and high borrowing costs leading to private filling stations being unable to stockpile fuel according to retailers and traders. According to Reuters, the attacks on certain days have reduced Russian oil refining by almost a fifth, and cut exports from key ports. According to five retailers and traders in the Russian fuel market, problems with shortages started to emerge in the Volga river region and in southern and central Russia as well in September. [3] On 29 September, Forbes reported that the issues had with fuel had worsened quickly and spread across much of the country, with rising prices, rationing, long queues and pumps running dry in some cases. [4]
In October, BBC Verify and BBC Russian found that reported Ukrainian drone attacks reached a record level of 14 refineries targeted in August, while eight had been targeted in September, meaning that 21 out of Russia's 38 large refineries had been hit since January 2025. [5] Meduza reported that some gas stations were shutting down altogether due to being unable to raise prices because of antitrust restrictions. In Crimea, Russian occupation officials were reported to have limited gasoline sales to 20 liters per customer and imposed price caps. [6]
The Russian government has imposed bans on gasoline exports since March 2024 (with interruptions). [7] In October 2025, the government announced a moratorium on the zeroing of the fuel damper, the exemption of winter diesel fuel from excise duty, [8] and the extension of the gasoline export ban until 1 May 2026. [9]
In November 2025, Reuters reported that Russia's oil processing had fallen only 3% during the year despite the attacks, as refineries averted a steep decline by using spare capacity to offset the damage. According to the report based on information from three Russian industry sources, 20% of Russia's refinery capacity was taken offline at the height of strikes between August and October, but this only resulted in a 6% drop in Russia's total volume. In terms of revenue, however, the International Energy Agency said that Russia's oil revenue declined to one of the lowest levels seen since the start of the war in 2022. [10]