August 5, 2026

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Fuel Crisis Shows Russia Can Still Absorb the Cost of War

(AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

Over the weekend, a bomb detonated outside of a Moscow restaurant, where Russian commander Colonel General Alexander Chaiko was celebrating his birthday, killing three and injuring 21. Authorities have labeled the incident as a terrorist attack, and the Russian embassy in Italy has blamed Ukraine. Although the claim is unsubstantiated, it exemplifies a larger paradigm shift in the Russia-Ukraine war. The idea that Ukraine could be behind such an attack on Russian soil shows Ukraine's elevation to a powerful player in this conflict, something few could have expected over four years ago, when Russia first invaded its smaller neighbor. Moscow is no longer solely on the offensive in its war with Kyiv. Ukrainian innovation in drone technology has, on some occasions, pierced through to major cities, disrupting daily Russian life and plunging the country into a fuel crisis.

At the heart of Russia’s fuel crisis is Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries and other energy infrastructure, which have escalated through 2025 and intensified again in 2026. The fuel crisis began in 2025 but became far more acute this summer, when Ukraine’s strike campaign began working against Russian fuel supply at two levels at once. Deep strikes into Russian territory, such as the June attack on the Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya, focused on targeting Russian refining capacity itself. This refinery supplies roughly 40 percent of the capital region’s gasoline and half its diesel; industry sources cited by Reuters believe the refinery will not be able to restart production by the end of the year. At the same time, mid-range Ukrainian strikes targeted distribution, such as oil tankers, depots, and transport corridors.

Russian-controlled Crimea has felt this pressure most sharply. Earlier Ukrainian attacks had already prompted Moscow to stop routing fuel across the Kerch Bridge — the road-and-rail link connecting Crimea to mainland Russia — leaving the peninsula dependent on land corridors from the north, and those corridors have been under sustained attack since the spring. At the end of May, gasoline on the peninsula was rationed at 20 liters per vehicle per week through prepaid coupons that sold out within minutes of release, with speculators reselling fuel at double the market price. By June 21, sales to civilians had been suspended entirely, with fuel reserved for government agencies. On June 26, Russian-installed authorities declared a state of emergency across Crimea and Sevastopol. By mid-July, restrictions on fuel sales were in force across more than 50 regions, with most imposing limits of 20 to 30 liters per visit alongside coupons and rationing schedules. Many regions also banned filling jerricans — a measure that fell hardest on rural residents who depend on stored fuel for generators, chainsaws, and farm equipment, and who now face blackouts without the means to run a generator or reach a pharmacy.

Analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that while military developments on the ground often do little to erode Russians’ support for the war, economic developments can deeply influence how Russians view the conflict. Russian economic growth during the early years of the war, driven by rapid military industrialization, correlated to large-scale support for the war. But the fuel crisis and possible economic knock-off effects — including shortages of the fuel needed to run agricultural machinery and supply trucks during the mid-summer harvest — have negatively impacted support for the war. Survey work in Russia’s border regions has found that respondents who personally bore such costs were roughly one and a half times likelier to favor troop withdrawal and negotiations.

However, support for the war in polling data does not neatly correlate with support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, largely because expressing fatigue with the war carries far fewer consequences than criticizing the Russian leader himself. His approval has slipped from its wartime peak but remains a clear majority. While the fuel crisis must certainly be managed by the Kremlin as they continue to drive the war forward, a much hoped-for political crisis for Putin is unlikely. To manage expectations around the fuel crisis, the Kremlin has attempted to downplay the effects. Moscow banned citizens from publicizing footage of the aftermath of drone attacks in May, and when the Moscow Oil Refinery was hit the following month, even a pro-war blogger was summoned by police for posting video of the structure, which was set ablaze. According to news outlet Meduza, such bans now cover at least 64 Russian regions, up from 33 last August, and enforcement has extended beyond fines to filmed apologies at police stations.

However, because of their visibility, fuel shortages are much harder to deny than casualties on the front — which presents another issue for the Kremlin, as casualties on the front are now exceeding the number of recruits Russia is able to replace them with. A recent CSIS report found that Russia sustained between 30,000 and 34,000 casualties per month in 2026 but is only able to recruit about 27,000 new soldiers each month, meaning it is not able to backfill its losses on the battlefield. As diplomatic avenues toward ending the conflict continue to stall — in large part because Moscow has not moved away from its most maximalist demands, and Kyiv refuses the territorial concessions those demands require — it has become increasingly clear that this war will be decided by which side can outlast the other. That leaves Russia in a difficult position.

A political crisis for Putin remains unlikely, but sustaining the war effort is becoming harder; Russia experiences a much higher casualty count than Ukraine, and recent reports from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency say the average life expectancy for a new Russian recruit on the Ukrainian front is 20 to 30 minutes. Although, Kyiv has a smaller army than Russia, remains vulnerable to its missiles as its interceptor stocks run low, and four years of strikes have devastated its infrastructure. Kyiv is also spending close to 40 percent of GDP on defense, against roughly eight percent for Russia. Nevertheless, Russia’s fuel crisis compounds its difficulties sustaining its war effort. For now, Moscow is absorbing the cost rather than resolving it, which has been its approach throughout this war of attrition, but the room to keep doing so is narrowing. Russia’s federal deficit continues to grow, and new sanction packages from the EU and U.S. have further tightened much-needed oil and gas revenue.

The Kremlin will likely continue to push through these issues, at the cost of mounting dissatisfaction, as Putin has a variety of tools at his disposal to repress public dissent and his autocratic system of governance makes him much more resilient to political and economic pressure than democratic leaders. On manpower, researchers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace believe that the regime will return to compulsory conscription as cash incentives reach their limits. Ukraine, for its part, has made significant advances — penetrating deep into Russian territory and gaining ground along parts of the front. These are promising developments, but observers should not be hasty in reading them as movement toward the war’s conclusion. Russians are experiencing the costs of the war more acutely than at any point in the past four years, yet that is unlikely to change the situation on the ground, and Putin has shown no willingness to make concessions at the negotiating table. A significant shift in the status quo may still be some way off. Ukraine will need to continue capitalizing on its momentum, and its partners will need the patience to let it.