It's historically unprecedented for Russia to lose this much oil refining capacity, and to do so in such a short time (in early August, just 13% of capacity was offline due to the Ukrainians). Ukraine has been targeting Russian oil refineries farther and farther into Russia in recent weeks, and the results have been stunning. What's also unusual is that the Russians aren't denying it anymore; the figures cited are from them. I suppose it's much easier to lay the blame on Ukraine for the severe gas shortages that way.
And Ukraine has mostly done so through drone strikes, not with the more powerful and greater range Flamingo cruise missiles, which have so far been used sparingly. When those get used to maximum force and with a claimed range of 3000km...
John McCain's famous quip that “Russia is a gas station run by a mafia masquerading as a country." Well, if that is true, that gas station is running out of gas.
Source: Moscow Times
Ukrainian drone strikes, which have hit more than two dozen major oil refineries in Russia since early August, have plunged the Russian fuel market into a crisis the likes of which it has never seen.
As of September 28, 38% of primary oil refining capacity, or 338,000 tons per day, was idle at refineries across the country, according to RBC, citing data from the quantitative information agency Siala.
Total capacity available for gasoline and diesel fuel production fell by 6% in August and by another 18% in September. The scale of refinery downtime has become historically unprecedented: it exceeded the August record (23%, 206,000 tons per day), as well as previous records set in May 2022 (196,000 tons per day) and May 2020 (164,000 tons per day).
According to Siala's estimates, approximately 70% of the downtime was the result of drone attacks: by the end of September, they had disabled approximately a quarter of Russian oil refining capacity, or approximately 236,000 tons per day, according to the agency's estimates.
In September, four more Russian refineries halted production after drone strikes. Among them were Kinef in the Leningrad Region, the second-largest refinery in Russia, and Rosneft's Ryazan refinery, one of the top five largest. The former stopped operations on September 14, the latter on September 5. The Novokuibyshevsk Refinery also halted refining on September 20, and Gazprom's Astrakhan Gas Processing Plant on September 22.
As a result, gasoline production in September fell by 1 million tons, and the domestic shortage reached 20% of consumption, a source familiar with the situation told Kommersant . The fuel crisis has hit the Far East and Crimea the hardest, where sales of more than 30 liters of gasoline per customer have been banned since the beginning of the week. Overall, more than 20 regions —from Sakhalin to the Nizhny Novgorod region—have experienced fuel shortages.
What's notable is how many of these have been put out of commission "indefinitely" as Russia tries to cope not only with the drone strikes themselves but getting the parts necessary to repair them, as Western sanctions have made that difficult.
Ukrainians have taken to playing Russian refinery bingo.
First BINGO! 🔥
01.10.2025 pic.twitter.com/VATIqYNLow— Kostiantyn Hoholenko (@KHoholenko) October 1, 2025
John McCain's famous quip.
How bad are things? "Russia running out of gas is like a vodka distillery running out of potatoes."
russia will now start importing fuel which can only mean one thing:
The damage to refineries is worse than previously assessed. The gas station masquerading as a country now has no gas.@HamishDBG breaks down the situation pic.twitter.com/6QGKEujGay— Caolan (@CaolanReports) September 30, 2025
