Ukraine Drone Strikes Spark Russia Fuel Crisis
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries have plunged Russia into a summer fuel crisis, with public frustration rising sharply, per Reuters
- A Russian State Duma deputy has publicly accused the government of concealing the true scale of the fuel crisis, according to Meduza
- The same deputy warned the crisis could cost certain officials their parliamentary seats in the September elections
- Russia's fuel shortage has become severe enough to draw open criticism from within the ruling political class, not just from outside observers
Why it matters: Russia's fuel crisis has escalated from an infrastructure problem into a political liability, with a sitting Duma deputy publicly accusing the government of a cover-up and tying the fallout to the September elections — a rare intra-system rebuke that raises the domestic cost of the refinery strikes beyond the energy sector.
